


Linguistic Assignations

by fresne



Category: Languages (Anthropomorphic)
Genre: Other, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 31,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8954659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: English is no pure language. It likes to shake down other languages for spare verbs and nouns.All languages borrow. Steal. Blend. Overwrite where they can. Struggle to sing against the silence.But hear now the tale of a family. A member of a vast tribe. Now is the time to gather the singers of tales. Go to the beginning. As far back as we can go. See the how each ancestor leaves a note in the song.





	1. The Family of PIE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/gifts).



> Sooo… your letter said,  
> "The English language ... has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary." - James Nicoll (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/purity.html) I would love it for English to try this (on one of the listed languages, or others, or whatever) and get beaten up and mugged in return.
> 
> I read that and since I've been enjoying this amazing free podcast “The History of English”.  
> http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
> 
> I thought, well, English has historically been beaten up a bit. Particularly by Old Norse and then Anglo-Norman. So I started to write that and then had to keep back filling so that certain things made sense. Really wasn’t intending to go all the way back to Proto Indo European, but um… ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This is broken up into chapters. It does feature incest because some of these languages are doing more than deep throated kissing and are frequently related. Hopefully, that's not an anthropomorphic problem.
> 
> I tried to keep the non-con to a minimum. But Latin overwriting Celtic Languages and English getting its back broken by Old Norse have non-consensual elements (in an anthropomorphic / what just happened to the inflections, pronouns, grammatical structure, and why are there all these new words / sort of way.). I have tagged chapters where this sort of thing happens.
> 
> The chapters featuring PIE and Germanic languages are written alliteratively (repeat first consonants) and kennings (fender bender and four-eyes are modern kennings) to reflect the Old English style of writing. Old French sections are written with sentence structures meant to mimic the style of Anglo-Norman and Langue D'Oc writing.
> 
> I am not a linguist. Therefore there are (sorry) probably many inaccuracies. Also, not everyone agrees on how things went. There are footnotes. Lots of footnotes. Although, first credit has to go to the above podcast, as well as the associated History of the Alphabet podcast. I am going to follow a convention of using specific languages words (known and reconstructed) for: mother, daughter and sister. These will have a footnote next to them like méhtēr(1) for Mother in Proto-Indo European. The point is to show both language drift and similarity. There will also be times where I am using non-kinship words from another language or just want to explain something. Those I will put a footnote after the end of the sentence. Like this.(2)
> 
> This story is unBetaed and possibly a beast to beta given the sentence structures described above. I really did not intend to write something this long or complicated. Therefore any SPAG, period inappropriate word choices (I can’t even tell you how many words where I looked up the etymology) or history are completely my own. 
> 
> Sincerely, thank you for asking for English. You may not have expected this story, but… well, nobody expects a language that decided to go with sentences and spelling like, "Between you and me, the King's chrome cat did circle the general's chateau silent as a ghost. I can't believe what I am seeing, but I'm not going to judge."  
> and realize that contains spellings/pronunciations inherited from Germanic, Greek, Latin/French, and has remnants of a Celtic grammatical structure.
> 
> Sooooo, now a lot of words...

Now may the grammar be set. Now may the wayfarers wend. The singers and speakers. The word-weavers and world-wanderers. The smiths of sounds. 

The wide open vowel and the constant consonants. Sibilants sliding from S over D into Z. Sounds. The stops of the twins of B and P. K and G. A brace of twins then. Voiced and unvoiced. Shifting. Changing. The hope of assibilation turning hard to soft. As simple as a méhtēr(1) faced with her infant dughtérs'(2) wailing cries. "Shhhhh…" 

Call forth the words of our elder méhtēr. The trunk of the tree at the edge of the golden grass. The common roots that hold the branches up to wave at the wandering of dughtérs. The hundred or so words carried down. 

There. 

Just there. 

Where the serpent-way slid through the long grass and split shore from shore. Until that mighty river went down to the dolphin-road. Where sky was separated from his lover, the land, by the wave of wind stroked grass. Where day was divided from night. Summer from winter. The living from the dead. 

There, just there, Pie sat with her dughtérs by the campfire. All around them the carts of her speakers. The wanderers. The singers with their songs. This was to be the last time they so gathered there in the long grass. There with their horses to carry them across the wide way. To pull their carts. Carry their loads. The cattle with their milk. Such a little thing. Pie marvelled at it. 

Méhtēr-milk(3) that turned green grass into food and grew the herds. Made of wandering a need to feed that growth. 

But that was the morrow. 

That was for day and this was night. 

There by the firelight, Pie stood. She raised a cup of mead and drank to their health.(4) There under the milky-way that meandered across the sky, Pie looked at her dughtérs. Her strong dughtérs with their strong verbs. 

Strongly inflected, as she was. So that every word had its own form. Each form its own meaning. Each with a powerful stem from which stiff affixed forms might grow. Such that any word might be placed in any order, and yet still be understood. Object or subject.(5) One, two or many. 

Nominitive. Vocative. Neuter. Instrumental. Dative. Ablative. Genitive. Locative. Accusative.(6) 

This last was Anatolian. The first to speak. Her eldest dughtér born of a slowly drift like snow on the steppe. "Mine was the first word shift. My right. Mine should be the blessing. Mine the hundred words."(7) 

Her next born, Tocharin, smashed her cup of mead upon clay. "You think it no blessing to stay close to our méhtēr. To not be forced to the work of wandering with my hundred. To wonder if I will survive the long way. No matter. I will cannot go nowhere that you are."(8) She turned away from Anatolian. "I will seek my way to the place where the sky-jewel is born. Above the wyrm-teeth mountains. I will go until I come to the end of green grass." 

Pregermanic crossed her nouns. Not to be outdone by her elder swésor(9) and yet, as always, wanting to be like her, she said, "Tocharin, I support your vow. I will seek where the sky-bonfire covers his blaze. Above the troll-teeth mountains. I will go until I come to the end of green grass." 

The twins, Pretialic and Preceltic, shouted. "We will have our hundred now!" 

The twins, Preamenian and Prebaltoslavic, shoved. "We will have our hundred words too." 

Hellenic slipped away from her smashing swésors. Off to play with her daubs of paint. 

The youngest, Protoindoiranian, looked fiercely at all. Seemed to demand a hundred by force of gaze. 

Pie tried to silence them. "Preitalic. Preceltic. You are too young to travel from me yet. You already have your hundred. You drank them with my milk. When you are ready, you can go." 

"We are not much younger than Pregermanic," protested Preitalic. 

The arguing continued. Until finally it seemed there was to be a split. Some of the swésors would pronounce the word for hundred as centum with a hard C. Would merge plain and paleto velars. While some of the swésors would pronounce hundred as satem. An S. Merge the labio and plain velars, and leave the paleto velars unmerged. (10) 

All the while Anatolian shouting that she would merge none of them. "None! I speak for our méhtēr." 

Pie corrected her with a crack of a noun. "I speak for me." Though she knew her time was passing. With the last puff of breath, she would pass to the black-cart of Dyēus Pater, sky father. She would pass from words.(11) 

Each of her dughtérs to carry their hundreds into the wandering-word-smithing-world. The world that silenced words. But no, she had made strong dughtérs with strong verbs. Surely they would survive. 

Pie had hoped for peace. Before wanderers set forth as scattered seeds before Dyēus Pater streaming-wind. As she had once gathered with her swésors along a far distant shore. 

Then she laughed, which stopped the shouts. She said, "I argued with my swésors the last time I saw them too. Now I would not know them. Nor they me." 

She laughed again. Left the firelight to seek out the spill of stars. Some many stars shot across that sky. No great warning. So they did every night. She watched them until Anatolian came to her. "It is cold, Méhtēr." Pie let her elder dughtér lead her back to warm old nouns by the fire. 

+++ 

1 - Reconstructed Mother in Proto-Indo European. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_vocabulary 

2 - Reconstructed Daughter in Proto-Indo European. 

3 - This is the theory that says that the reason Proto-Indo European (PIE) spread so far because of a genetic mutation among the speakers of PIE that allowed for a new source of calories for adults – milk, tand the domestication of the steppe horse. This means herd animals can produce food without being slaughtered and conversely meant a need for more grazing lands. https://books.google.com/books?id=IeUWBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181#v=onepage&q&f=false 

4 - There are a lot of words for mead in Indo European languages, so it's one of the better attested words and has many cognates. A cognate is a word that derives the same root stock. Madre and Mother are cognates. 

5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages 

6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_nominals 

7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages 

8 - Reconstructed sister in Proto Indo European. 

9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages 

10 - Reconstructed Sky-Father – aka Zeus, Jupiter, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion


	2. The People of the Horse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pregermanic travels to the end of the grass.

Pregermanic travelled through forests many moons from her méhtēr(1). 

Her people passed the mud mounds of the Cordedware and the Funnelware. Their mud bristled with stakes. 

Also, pottery. 

Her stiff affixes were too strong. She ground such to dust. 

She told herself that she had no use for heavy clay words when she wove what was needed from the reeds. What need did she have for harvests when her herds gave all that was needed? Gathered the bounty of apples from the trees and the deer that roamed the forest.(2) 

Sometimes, she would find a foreign nut, a walnut and think, "If I cannot smith a new word, such that all nuts must be called walnuts in this great forest so far from the green grass, how will I live to carry the words of my mehtér.(3) I cannot live on milk and mead alone." 

She told herself that her mehtér had born strong dughtérs(4) with strong verbs. That bronze was strong. Bending was the fate of all before a blade. 

She drummed her song on her shield. She battered the bare settlements. She took their cattle. Fair trade for offering words that had no value, or so she told herself. 

Her people came so far north that she came to a wilding-mere with waves that were a much frothed mane. There in this place was a settlement with high mounded walls on three sides. 

The fourth let out to the wide mouth of the bucking mere beyond. 

Pregermanic surrounded the settlement and called out, "Give us your cattle and we will leave you be." She had no reason to think they would understand her, here so far from where she had been born. Beating swords on shields spoke its own story. 

The language inside tossed out fish so that they fell like rain from the eagle's road. An unstressed voice said, "That cod is all the cattle you'll get from us. For it is all the cattle we have." 

The fish flopped. 

Pregermanic reached for this new word. This cod for her for her stew of words, but her affixes were too rigid.(5) She was not well suited to pick up new words. The fate of this fish was of no good fortune and of no felicity to Pregermanic. 

The language laughed. Then laughed again to see the expression on Pregermanic's inflected nouns. Then in the strangest thing, she came out of her village with oil. She rubbed it upon Pregermanic's affixes. It smelled no worse than a herd of cattle. It smelled of fish. 

Stranger still, Pregermanic let her. Did not crush this stranger with Pregermanic's strong verbs. Watched the stranger point to the mere. "Cod comes from the sea. Oil from the cod." 

She looked out at the sea and gasped to grasp a new word. She saw the sea. No mere mare frothing, but a sea full of waves as once grass had waved. 

She told the stranger, "This is a mare across which my equines cannot run and carts cannot travel." She pointed at the sea carts. 

"Boats to cross the sea?" Behind them the herds of Pregermanic moved restlessly. The language laughed. "You ride horses."(6) She pointed again. "Horses." 

"Horses," said Pregermanic. 

The language to herself pointed. "Maglemosian." 

In this way, Pregermanic knew stranger into friend. Flexed her oil loosened affixes. Traded sea for mere. Marvelled to hear Maglemosian transform the word into marsh by the sea. Traded equine for horse and learned cod. Set sail with her hand on a keel. 

So friendship grew on fruitful-ground. Maglemosian said, "This can be a cold place in winter." She invited Pregermanic to spend the winter well sheltered. 

They sheltered together all the while the grim winter gathered. Broke upon them in snow, while they snuggly out waited it. Pregermanic unbent at Maglemosian's slow rub. Pregermanic sang her songs. Maglemosian sang hers. 

Come the spring, Pregermanic was with child of that singing. Germanic. 

Germanic did not sing song words between high and low pitch. Her pitch was fixed. Grimly shifted.(7) Phadar had become fater. Méhtēr became mōdēr(9). Other consonants shifted too. While some of her stiff inflexions had been lost into the frothing sea. 

She did not know to miss them, which made her Mehtér click her tongue. 

"Mōdēr(8), don't fuss," said Germanic. She scratched the heads of her hound, which she might also call a canine and wintered a good many years with her moders until her own time of wandering blew on the wind.  
+++ 

1 - Mother in PIE. 

2 - In Anglo-Saxon (so – we aren't there yet in the story, but whatever), pples and deer were generic terms to refer to fruit and furry forest critters respectively. http://thefreedictionary.com/deer 

3 - The root of walnut is foreign nut. It's the same root that gets us Wales, which (as we'll get to later) means foreigner in the Germanic dialects of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. 

4 - Daughter in PIE 

5 - Cod is a Germanic word with no attested PIE roots. 

6 - Horse is not (some argumentation may apply) PIE, which is where we get equine from. 

7 - Grimm's law on how Germanic sounds shifted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law 

8 – Father in PIE and Pregermanic respectively. Mother in PIE and Pregermanic respectively. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mother


	3. Celtic Clashes On a Long Winter's Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Celtic family never could agree on what had led to their being so many Celtic languages.

The Celtic family never did agree what happened. Though often they did discuss it while the Alban Arthan log burned all through the howling of the longest night. 

Brittonic claimed that their mam(1), Protoceltic, had been gathering mistletoe with a bronze sickle when from that tree she fell. There the bright berries she did crush, bifricating her demonstrable structure. The branches mutating her vowels. Further, she had woken covered in runes. 

A strange old language with no vowels where her vowels should be had been sitting on a fallen tree. The tree that Protoceltic had been climbing. 

This language said, “One teaches,” and ever since all their kind had been so taught. That old language had chewed upon a leaf. Spat once and as the battered leaf fell to the ground, Protoceltic had shattered as a bronze shield may shatter when struck a blow. Where once had been one, now were two. Twins as all must be. 

Insular to the isles fled. As she attempted to balance with one noun each upon an island, she split into Brittonic with a Brythonic clubbed foot upon Britain. Into Goidelic on the isle of Eire. Twins as all must be. 

Continental in her terror did run in all directions, but the one that her twin did go. So found herself split into Gaulic, Celtiberian, and Leontic. 

Gaulic punched Brittonic consonantly. “I thought there were always twins.” She moved closer to the fire. “That is not what happened.” 

Celtiberian groaned. She knew what tale Gaulic would now tell. 

Gaulic told this tale. 

That there were berries, it was true, but they were not of mistletoe. 

Celtiberian slipped away from their mamm(2) to pick berries. For she loved the sweet berries of the springtime of the year. There with her consonants well stained and seeded, she did meet Milesian. She was. She did. There she with Milesian copula.(3) There in the brambles and without another word, but, “Is,” she gave up her voiced aspiration.(4) 

Tangled and out of breathe, she slept. When she woke, she found herself stained in a sort of rune that spoke of what she’d done. All through the spring, she drew similar runes. Claiming always that the reason she’d grown so round in her inflected pronouns was all the berries she ate. Until her inflected pronouns were so full, there was no hiding the truth. So she did run away to hide her shame in Eire. Where she gave birth to Goedelic, who she did leave there with Milesian. 

But our mamma well knew what Celtiberian had done and sent her to live her shame in Iberia. 

“And who,” interrupted Celtiberian, “is the one that told her that.” She slapped Gaulic such a blow to sting to the next day. “That is for spreading lies. There is no child to me in Eire. She is our deirfiúr(5) and our mamaí’s daughter.” 

Lepontic poured herself more mead. She said, “But… I thought that Celtiberian was our elder máthair, and Protoceltic our elder elder máthair. Celtiberian had Geodelic, and the rest came of wandering west, changing as we went until here we are.” 

“I am not that elder,” said Celtiberian. “Why do I come to these family gatherings each year?” 

Geodelic said, “Love, máthair.” 

Celtiberian reached across Lepontic to pour herself some mead. “I do not think that is it.” 

+++ 

1 - Mother in Welsh. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

2 - So… the trick here is that the living Celtic languages are all Insular after milling around looking for Celtiberian for mother, I took Mamm from Breton, technically Brittonic Insular Celtic. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

3 – A linking word like is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics) 

4 - Probably not how giving up voiced (vocal chords) aspirations (sounds with a puff of breath) works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberian_language 

5 - Sister and Mother in Irish Gaelic respectively. By the way, the Celtic languages descended from Irish Celtic was from an article I read… awhile ago about all the Celtic people being descended from Iberian to Irish Celts to everyone. Shrug.


	4. Fifty Shades of Greek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycenaean Greek was not sure if she enjoyed what she did with Minoan in the red room. The room where Minoan painted her in lines of text.

Mycenaean Greek was her mḗtēr's thugátēr(1). Hellenic(2) had loved warmth and wine dark seas. So did Mycenaean Greek. Her mḗtēr had raised her among olive trees. She grew up along the curving coast. She shivered to think of living to the north. 

Far better to be where it was warm and there was time for painting waves upon ware of clay. There was time for riding equines and braiding their manes. There was time for songs sung to to entertain the sheep. She was at this art when she met another language. 

Minoan was older. Much older. She was wealthier in words. Rich troves of them. Sophisticated in the ways of the world. Minoan was travelling through the countryside with trade goods. They traded words. Minoan said, "You should come to my cities to see the bull roarers." 

Mycenaean Greek inflected genitivally at the idea of going anywhere with such a beautiful language with such curling consonants. Even if she didn't know what a bull roarer was. She wanted to know. 

Minoan gave Mycenaean Greek a great gift then. Wrapped a string of Linear A around her long vowels.(3) "Come. Visit me." 

Mycenaean Greek held Linear A. She felt the power of what she had been given. She felt it in her stems. 

"I do not know." Looked down at the beautiful writing she had been given unasked for. In a rush, she decided. "Yes. I want. Yes." 

She came to the cities of Minoan. There were singers of songs leaping over bulls. There were painted palaces with flushing toilets. A wonder she'd never expected to see and had no word for until Minoan gave it to her. It was after that that Minoan took her to a specially painted room. 

A red room. 

Minoan said, "I have special linguistic interests, but if it's too much, you should go." She brushed Mycenaean Greek's nouns adjectively. "Sweet-language, do not go." 

Mycenaean Greek was not sure what to do. She did not know if she should. "Show me." 

Minoan clustered Mycenaean Greek's consonants. Bound double consonants that dissolved into vowels. Constricted forced fricatives with voiced labial dental bites. Further, she wrote Mycenaean Greek's syllables in Cretan Hieroglyphs.(4) Long lines of Linear A on her nouns. Mycenaean Greek felt the power of brush strokes. She came inflexively. Generatively. Babbling new words. 

Actually, Mycenaean Greek wasn't sure if she liked it. Oh, the part where she inflected, certainly. But she wished there could be more soft sibilants in their relationship. But she did not want to say anything. Minoan was so sophisticated and had so many words. Was so generous with them. 

Mycenaean Greek moved into the palace of Knossos. She would often sit in the window of her blue room and gaze upon the wide water. She wrote a poem in Linear A about Zeu Pater of the strong sky and his love of Éōs of the blushing dawn until they set the sky to burning.(5) 

She did this in secret. She told herself that Minoan had given her Linear A for her own use. That it had been given to her so she could write. She hid the truth from herself as a fearful child hides a light under a bowl when adults rage about the house. 

Minoan told her what to write. Wrote upon her in the red room. Wrote about her own gods. Her goddess of opium. Her bull-roarer that shook the earth. 

It was only as Mycenaean Greek tried to write a poem about the goddess of the gardens love for the goddess of the rivers when Mycenaean Greek realized that she had forgotten their names. They were gone. She looked in her sack of words and found many words missing. Blotted out. Written over. Over painted with Minoan hieroglyphs. It was then she understood writings true power. The power to overlay one word with another. 

She told herself that this was an accident. 

She told herself that this could not be. 

She told herself that Minoan had given her a room in Knossos. This did not bring back the names of gods and goddesses that her mḗtēr had given her. 

She went to find Minoan. 

She found her in the red room with Hittite. Being carved with cuneiforms. 

Mycenaean Greek ran from the city. She ran to the pleasant hills to cry with her flocks. She threw Linear A on the ground. Smashed it verbally. Orally. With many adverbs and adjectives. 

Minoan ran after her. "You do not understand!" 

"I understand that I have lost words that you have written over." 

"No, my sweet language. Writing preserves language. You simply must be guided in how to write it. Let me guide you." 

But Mycenaean Greek would not listen. 

Minoan said, "I am Hittite's túwatara(6). She is the one who gave me Linear A. I still have words to give you." 

"I do not believe you." Mycenaean Greek wanted to left alone to sing sad songs to her flocks in peace. 

"I will leave this gift for you here." 

Mycenaean Greek waited until Minoan left. It was a new writing form. Linear B. Dangerous as a serpent. She did not want Minoan's gifts. She did not want her writing. 

That was no truth. She wanted writing. She wanted to write her songs. She wanted her poets singing to their flocks to be remembered. She wanted to be respected as her own language. She picked up Linear B and wrote down how many sheep she had in her flock. 

She certainly wasn't going to write Minoan. 

Until Minoan sent her an invitation to see the bull roarers leaping the bulls in the spring. 

Mycenaean Greek knew she should not, but she went. Certain that this time would be different.   
++++ 

1 - Mother and daughter respectively in Classical Greek, cuz... not a lot of attested Mycenaean Greek (btw I cannot spell this word to save my life - every instance had to be corrected) on the ground. 

2 - Give the Iliad and Greek myths in general, yeah, I'm certain Mycenaean probably shouldn't be so flower child, but it's how the story went. 

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A 

4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretan_hieroglyphs 

5 - Zeus, Jupiter, less a borrowing and more parallel gods. Zeu Pater & Dis Pater becoming Zeus and Iovis, eventual Jupiter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion 

6 - Sooo... Minoan is a bit of a who knows. I used daughter from Hittite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_vocabulary


	5. As Simple as A, B, C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Egytian didn't want to admit she had a problem with the number of symbols in her writing system.
> 
> Prearamaic asked, "Why would I need vowels?"
> 
> Greek borrowed the alphabet and added vowels.
> 
> Etruscan borrowed the alphabet and... no quite understood Etruscan.
> 
> Latin took that Etruscan alphabet and she made it her own. Primarily by borrowing back letters from Greek.

Egyptian stayed in her river valley. When she was not waging war on Hittite or trading with Hittite.

Egyptian had developed a comprehensive system of syllabic characters for her writing. Far superior to the mere several hundred characters that Hittite was using.

"In your age, you forget how to count," said Hittite. "I take my writing from Sumerian. I have collected over a thousand syllabic letters. I would wonder that my annas(1) Anatolian wanted me to learn it. Where once I rode my chariots and stole cattle, now I am the language of an empire with accounting. I have to keep lists of cows. I never had to list cows before. I either had less than a hundred cows or a hundred cows."

Egyptian sniffed artistically. Drew both pictographic and syllabic writing. Her priest class wrote of her many gods and goddesses. A complex layering that it took a lifetime to master. Not something that could be picked up in a merely year or two.

"I am serious," said Hittite. "Have you looked at the peace treaty our kings hammered out? Many symbols to say little."

Egyptian and Hittite were not related. Not cognate languages.

They were rivals.

They liked it like that.

"Writing is complicated because writing should be complicated," defended Egyptian. Not admitting that Egyptian had a a problem.

There were all these migrant Semitic people coming into the land of Egypt on these long form visas. After all, there were hundreds of syllables in Egyptian and every syllable needs must be recorded with a separate symbol.

Migrant workers with names full of nothing but consonants. Sounds that just did not occur in Egyptian. So embedded in the middle of the visa documentation were short - tiny really and just for foreigners - phonetic letters.

Prearamaic looked at her agricultural work visa and said, "Forget the complicated meshuggeneh, I can work with phonemes." She built a lovely little short hand list of letters to share. To write a few things down. She had – after all – a few thing she wanted to get down on tablet and paper.

She said to her priest clan, "I see how the priests of Hittite and Egyptian write of their gods. I see how they write their stories and overwrite all else. Write my story. Write of the word that made the world. Write our history so we will not forget."

Her priests wrote of the word that made the world. They wrote in a text so simple and easy that it could be learned easily. Did not require a priest class. Merely access to the paper pounded out of papyrus reed or clay from the river banks. It could be used simply. Passed from language to language without difficulty.

"As long as you don't need vowels," said Egyptian reading the proposed new contract that Prearamaic had hopefully presented.

Prearamaic said, "The vowels are implied."

"Where you actually use them," said Egyptian. She tore up the contract.

Prearamaic could not let this stop her. She shared the letters with her family. She even shared it with old Ugaritic.

Prearamaic even came up with a clever method for remembering the letters. Every letter was named after a word starting with the letter and every letter was drawn to look like the word. This made the letters even easier to remember.(2)

Until Phoenician decided to have bright ideas.

Prearamaic looked at what Phoenician had done. "Why did you change the names?

I drew a snake for  and that is why I named it naḥš. Why have you have renamed it nun, which means fish?  does not look like a fish. Does it look like something other than a snake? Why did you name it for a fish? I had already drawn  as a triangle so that it looked like a fish, which is why I named it digg for a fish. Why have you renamed it dalet? Does it look like a door? Who has a triangular door? "   

"I do not believe these are questions." Phoenician waited until Prearamaic calmed down. "If  is mēm, which is water, then  should be nun, because nunfish swim in water. In this way, I link one concept to the other for an even better memory device."  

Prearamaic glowered. "If the fish looked like a snake then you would have a point. Does it look like a fish?" 

"Now I could just change…"   

Prearamaic said, "Stop."   

Phoenician did not stop.  

The argument was sadly interrupted by the Sea People.  

"Murderers," said the Phoenicians from their boats heading away from wherever the Sea People were.  

"Guh," said Hebrew who was working for Egyptian for another year of bad pay doing the work that Egyptian did not want to do. But at least Egyptian had a very large army and many resources to fight the Sea People.  

When the Sea People finally stopped killing everyone, the linguistic landscape was very different.   

Hittite.   

Gone.   

Mycenaean Greek writing erotica about kidnapped queens in Linear B.   

Broken.   

Mycenaean Greek sobbed over the burned pages. "So much has been lost."  

Minoan.   

Wiped out.   

That had also been some poor earthquake planning.  

Egyptian held on, but it was a near thing.   

Verbs were lost. Nouns fell into the sea.   

Entirely literary traditions destroyed.   

For some, this changed the landscape for the better.  

Hebrew finally got out of that horrible contract with Egyptian.   

Phoenician now had an open sea. "Clay cuneiform tablets are so pre-Sea People." Phoenician nudged at Hebrew. "Papyrus. Ink. Phonetic writing. Time to do business."  

Hebrew was busy staring at some tablets with Ten Commandments on them. "Can you read this handwriting? What script is this? I asked for directions to cross the desert."  

"Sure." Phoenician left Hebrew to her tables and went to town. Also to trade.   

Mycenaean Greek renamed herself. Found herself. She was going to be Classical Greek. Classy. She was never going to be used by writing, again.  

Classical Greek was a sea faring language.   

Phoenician was a sea faring language. 

Together, Classical Greek and Phoenician made… bronze. They traded things and wrote them down.   

Just one problem.   

Vowels.   

Classical Greek looked at the receipt from Phoenician and said, "Where are the vowels?" Classical Greek needed vowels. She had multiple vowels. Enjoyed using them too.  

She thought about Linear A and B. She said, "I can remake this for my own purpose." She turned , Aleph into an Alpha. Into a vowel. It took her some time. She had to turn Aleph around a few times. Convert a few other letters from consonants into vowels. She looked at the two letters for S. , Sāmek, for the S. Sīn for a sort of SK sound. She told herself that she was a language in charge of her own writing. She took the letter for šīn, flipped it on its side, Σ, and renamed it Sigma for the S sound. She simplified the two consonant K letters: kāp and qōp. "I don't need two letters." She took kāp,, which she renamed Kappa and flipped around into K. But she certainly didn't need the complication of a  for same sound cluttering up her alphabet.

Really, she changed the look of the whole thing. Added letters for her more aspirational sounds.(3) 

She tried writing from right to left. Both right to left and then left to right, and then settled on left to right. 

Rebranded the whole thing the Greek alphabet.(4) "I am a language in charge of her destiny."  

A Classical Greek philosopher said, "Writing will be the death of memory, because written words have no soul. No responsiveness."  

Classical Greek patted his head and had another philosopher write that down. (5) 

Now over in Italy, Etruscan was very interested in Classical Greek fashion, and was thinking of buying into the Classical Greek alphabet.   

There was just one problem. Etruscan was not a descendant of Pie.(6) Not Semitic either. No one was quite sure where Etruscan came from. Etruscan looked at the alphabet and said, "But I have three sounds for the letter Kappa and I don't need Gamma. I don't need any letters for the unvoiced stops like beta or Delta."   

Classical Greek said, "You can configure it." She wanted any language using her Classical Greek Alphabet to fully actualize their use of it, but keep the name. It was the Classical Greek Alphabet. Created by Classical Greek. The font of all culture. 

Egyptian rolled her verbs pointedly and pounded out the year's supply of papyrus. 

Hebrew said, "What am I? Invisible?" 

Classical Greek ignored them. 

Etruscan took an order of the Classical Greek Alphabet. After some thought she realized that the sound for Gamma was fairly similar to Kappa. Or at least they sounded alike to her. She changed Gamma to a K sound, and rename it something clever with a C at the beginning. But she still needed another K sound.  

Phoenician had a slightly used qōp, , for the KW sound, which she swore could be easily inserted into the Classical Greek alphabet. Etruscan modified it to a Q and it worked perfectly fine.  

Etruscan loved her new alphabet. She wrote many books and many poems. She was going to be remembered. 

Now, she had also gone into the Classical Greek fashion of relationships with underage languages – better not to go into what she did to Celtic up to in the forests to the north - and was involved with a young slip of an Italic language, Latin.   

Latin was one of many Italic languages, but she was determined to make something of herself. To better herself and she made use of every advantage. She told Etruscan many times how much she admired her Alphabet. 

Etruscan said to Latin, "My Palatine love, my sweet filia(7) of Pie, have a gift." Etruscan laid the Alphabet around Latin's slender young nouns. "See how attractive the Alpha is? While you, my love, are my little Omicron."  

Classical Greek said, "Would you like the new extension that I just created. I call it Omega, Ω. I am using it for the long O sound and keeping Omicron for the short O."(8) 

"No," said Etruscan. "I kept the vowels for appearances. I don't really need them." 

Latin needed vowels.  

Classical Greek told her, "Because I have been in the same situation, be careful when older language gives you writing." 

"You do not need to be concerned." Latin lightly touched each of the letters. In secret, she reworked it. She was going to be first among her family.  

She promised herself that she would only use C for the K sound. That she would never use K or Q. Flipped C around, because the way Etruscan drew it was old fashioned. Z was ridiculous. She would simply use S. She didn't have any words with Z in it. Z was out." Latin defiantly added a new letter. Since Gamma used to be a G sound, she copied the shape of C for G and added little line to show they were different.(9) 

She borrowed a few letters from Classical Greek, who honestly wasn't trying to break Etruscan and Latin up.  

Privately, Classical Greek had to say, "That is a relationship that is not going to last. They have nothing in common."  

Admittedly, she was having her own relationship issues with Farsi.  

When Latin broke up with Etruscan, it was not pretty.   

Latin burned all of Etruscan's books, smashed her carvings, and ran around the Italic peninsula writing in big carved letters that she had never gotten a thing from Etruscan and they had never been involved and in fact she didn't even know who Etruscan was. "What is an Etruscan?"  

Etruscan went to go sadly cry in a cave under a hill and faded away. 

Latin proudly wore her Latin Alphabet. "I came. I saw. I wrote." 

 

++++ 

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language 

I pulled the word for Mother in Hittite from here 

http://www.post-gazette.com/life/lifestyle/2010/05/09/The-word-mother-is-special-in-all-languages/stories/201005090242 

2 - I'm going to keep the examples for how this works to the consonants, which in some cases have been constant in terms of the sound. Vowels, as you may gather from the jokes, there were no vowels in Phoenician. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet 

3 - Suffice to say, originally S looked like a W. There was no letter for W in Greek or Latin for that matter. Phoenician had a consonant for W called wāw, which meant hook and looked like this . The convention was to use a V or U (V for carving U for script writing), but it was considered the same letter. To indicate a W, scribes would write either UU (2 Us - you know Double U) or VV (two Vs - Double V) depending on the script style. For a long time, the convention (medievally speaking) was to write V if at the beginning of the word and U if in the middle. Once we got to the printing press, printers formalized the difference between U and V, and added a W. But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The lack of W will be relevant when we get to Anglo-Saxon. Who with their Wodans, etc did need a W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet 

4 - You can see the classical and modern versions here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet 

5 - Socrates in the book Phaedrus as written down by Plato, since Socrates wasn't literate. Errr… I am paraphrasing. 

6 - Basically, we don't know where Etruscan came from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language 

This is BTW why English has 3 letters that all serve for the same sound: C, K, and Q. Because Etruscan had 3 different (to them) sounds for Kappa /K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language 

7 - Latin uses filia for daughter, which you note doesn't sound a lot like dughtér. Latin and Celtic both used a word that didn't come from PIE. Mind, I don't have a reason to think that filia came from the anthropomorphic pillow talk of Etruscan. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/filia#Latin 

8 – Classical Greek started out with a letter for O, which they modified from Phoenician. Loaned the alphabet out to Etruscan. Decided they wanted different letters for the big O... long O, and the short O. Which they named Omega (O + Mega for big). They renamed the existing O to Omicron (O + micron for little). Etruscan and Latin don't have Omega, which was at the end of the Greek Alphabet, because they borrowed before it existed. So when we have a sentence in Greek like "I am the Alpha and the Omega." It meant, "I am the beginning and end of the sentence, but is meaningless in Latin, which doesn't have that letter. 

9- And here's the Latin alphabet. Still not with the modern alphabets though. Several letters weren't invented until the middle ages and language shifts created a need for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet 


	6. The Capo Language

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Latin was going to be the capo language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for 70s Romance novel non-con. i.e., Latin non-con invades. Other languages change to please Latin. Phoenician is salty. Greek cuts a good deal.

Latin looked at her alphabet, her city, her city planning and decided it was time to show her soror(1) who would capo of the Italic family. 

There was a brawl at the Italic family reunion. Latin sort of…. It was fine. Just fine. No need for anyone to… Latin found a shovel. She was an engineering sort of language. She could dig her own… sewers. 

Afterwards, she felt free. "I am the rex of everything! I am the capo language. No one can touch me." 

Gaulic sacked Latin's city. Her home of Rome. "Ithinkyouarecute!" yelled Gaulic as she ran away. 

Latin sat in the ash feeling shaken. Assaulted. Assessed the situation. "Clearly, my problem was I have a rex. Also, I don't rule all the things. I need to rule all the things. I will be safe if I rule everything." She looked west at the Iberian peninsula. There was a Celtic language in Iberia. 

Phoenician, down in Carthage, said, "Stay away from Celtiberian.(2) We've been together for ages." 

"Celtiberian and I are cognates." Latin flattered Celtiberian vowels. Complemented her mead. Discussed the fine aqueducts Latin could build for her. "Phoenician does not love you anymore. If she ever did. And look at all those consonants. Where are the vowels? You need vowels. I can share that with you. Words full of vowels." 

Celtiberian had always found Phoenician's consonants charming, but she had to admit that things had gotten a little stale. They had been together for ages and it was hard to borrow words. Latin moved closer. 

Phoenician saw what was happening and shoved Latin through the Alps. 

Latin shoved back. 

When the fighting was done, Phoenician was a salty language and Latin was lounging on her deck chair with Celtiberian on her lap. They glided consonants. Latin whispered, "Let's get vulgar. Here, let me write for you. Let me show you how words have to be written. Spoken." She remembered what Classical Greek had said about writing. She carved some words where it mattered. 

Celtiberian yelled, "Sic! Sic! Sic(3)!" 

Latin shared writing with Celtiberian. The Latin alphabet. It was very important that everyone understood who was the capo language. Celtiberian was grateful, she really was with the way Latin gently corrected Celtiberian. Sometimes, not so gently. 

Celtiberian changed for Latin. Stopped being Celtic except for a few memento words. It was not as if the family gatherings had ever been all that fun. She became vulgar of Latin. 

She became Iberian Latin. 

Gladly accepted Latin's gifts of words like a filia from her sugar māter. All the words. Caseus for cheese and fābulārī for conversation.(4) 

She was the first vulgar Latin, but certainly not the last. 

She cried on Basque's grammar over that. 

Latin had been serious about spreading herself around. 

"Why are I not enough for Latin," cried Iberian Latin. 

Basque did not say that Iberian Latin should not have changed herself for a relationship. She did not want to be shut out. She remembered the argument over Milesian. 

Basque watched Iberian Latin watch Latin go to Greece. She handed Iberian Latin a tear absorbing noun. Held her while she cried. 

Latin was not crying. Latin strode into Greece yelling, "I am the capo language." 

Classical Greek was lounging on a divan when Latin arrived. She waited patiently while Latin threw Macedonian out of the andron in Classical Greek's home. (5) 

Latin was ready to take over and would have no rivals. She said as much. 

Classical Greek said, "Macedonian came for a symposium, acted like she was in charge and simply would not leave." Classical Greek poured some wine from an amphora that she had painted with wine dark seas. 

Latin coughed, "Now that you're part of the empire, you should speak Latin. Use the Latin alphabet. I am the language of culture. In fact, you should call me Classical Latin." 

Classical Greek sipped the wine that she had made in a contemplative way. All the while gazing at Latin over the top of the cup that she had made. On the furniture that she had designed. In the house that she had built. 

Latin squirmed upon the very comfortable divan. "Fine, you don't have to call me Classical Latin. But you… umm… well… Celtiberian became a vulgar Latin for me. We could… you should." Latin gulped down wine. 

"Sweetheart," Classical Greek pulled out a scroll or three. "I would love to be part of an empire inspired my designs, but," Classical Greek unrolled some Sapphic poetry, "let us not forget which of us civilized first." Greek read an erotic poem or ten. "Since I am already established in the east, for the sake of continuity, I should be the language of the Eastern Empire. After all in parabolḗ between the two of us, that's what a classical language calls comparison, I am the more cultured language." (6) 

Latin well full of wine, blinked. "That would be… I like the Iliad." At Classical Greek's pout, Latin added, "And the Odyssey." 

Classical Greek applied some olive oil places on Latins nouns. Classical Greek paused just as things were getting interesting. "Darling, you dropped the X and Z from my alphabet." 

"I do not, I… there are no words starting in Z or X." Latin twisted upon the divan. "Why would anyone need an X? I just use SK and it makes the same sound." 

"Oh, dear." Classical Greek looked pained. "You will need those letters if you want to borrow my words and be really cultured." Then resumed what she was doing. Aspirating consonants as she pressed down. 

Latin ended up back on the Italic peninsula with several serious venereal infections of Classical Greek words with sounds that she didn't have, could not tell apart like Y and I, letters that she had never used like Z and X, and a desire to get some more poets and philosophers. And poet philosophers. 

She pondered the word philosopher. Decided that she'd make an homage to Classical Greek aspirations in words by putting an H after the proceeding letter. Then she read some philosophy of chemistry.The Hs were honorary.(7) 

Classical Greek said to all the other languages in the east. "No hard feelings, but the best language won out with Latin. Now if you start any new religions, make sure to get the text down in Classical Greek, using my branded Alphabet. Left to Right." 

Hebrew said, "Ignoring your oppression of my culture, because I am reading a book in my own script based on the work my family did, which you stole." 

Egyptian simply raised a verb. She'd already hammered out an agreement with Classical Greek over the whole Macedonian affair. Egyptian was taking a long view. 

Back in the Italic peninsula, Latin was still thinking about Gaulic Celtic, who had burned Rome. Gaulic Celtic, who had made Latin conquer all those other countries to feel safe at night. Gaulic Celtic, who was up there, being spoken, just over the Danube. 

"Never have I been, nor shall I never be Celtic," said Germanic. "Just to clarify, the more negatives in a sentence, the more emphatically I am saying something. I am not a Celtic language." 

Latin sniffed. "You are barbaric with strange religious practices." She paused to augur the future in the shape of a flock of birds.(8) "However, you have good trade goods." She traded with Germanic along the Danube. 

Germanic liked well the words Latin traded to her. Caseus for cheese with its hard C well suited to her needs for describing soft fermented milk and vinum was an excellent word for the sweet fruit of the grape for well she loved words that started with a W sound. It made her think of Wodan.(9) 

Phoenician sighed. "We had a letter for that consonant, but for some reason Classical Greek split the letter into a vowel and a consonant when they rebranded, the Etruscans skipped the letter altogether and… we're really not sure what Latin is doing. Salty. I am just salty over the whole thing." 

Germanic cared nothing for this confusion over alphabetic rebranding. She was not a literate language. 

Oh, she'd had as a gift from Etruscan of some symbols long ago, but theirs had been a rough exchange suited to young languages coupling in the forest while on holiday. Germanic kept those symbols as runes for a keepsake and sometimes cast them on some occasion. She did so then to read the future. 

This set Latin to muttering about strange religious practices and the dangers of the Celtic family. 

Brittonic called across the channel, "There's also more than one type of Celtic language." 

Latin said, "My naval umbilicus will never be safe as long as is Celtic spoken in Gaul." 

Gaulic said, "You're weak and pathetic and we will never stop using place names like Baiocassensis. Not even if you roughly invade me like did Iberia because I burned your city down." She said this and yet could not help adding, "I like your calendar. The whole way you reset to exactly the same time every year on the spring equinox with the winter months being disposable." 

Latin changed her calendar as soon as Gaulic said something. 

Iberian Latin laughed at Gaulic. "Latin hates you. She is with me now." 

"But, I invaded her," said Gaulic. "That should mean something." 

Latin invaded Gaul. Bent Gaulic romantically back over Latin's alphabet. 

Gaulic grew a little moist in her inflections. But she was a fiery language. Remembered that Celtiberian had gone completely vulgar. Really, really vulgar. So very vulgar. Especially after Latin started settling her ex-soldiers on farm land in Iberia. 

Gaulic wasn't going to give in like Celtiberian. Not without a fight. 

Latin wrenched Gaulic roughly to her and ripped the ties on her dipthongs. "You will say hoc.(10) You will never threaten Latin again." 

"Never," said Gaulic, meaning that she would never give in. 

Latin built aqueducts. Roads. Settled old soldiers in Gaul. Latin built coliseums and tiled in underground hot springs for really interesting bathing rituals. Most importantly, she gave Gaulic the Latin alphabet. For writing Latin. Carved and wrote all over Gaulic. 

Gaulic changed for Latin. She stopped being Celtic to please Latin. It was a slow process, but she became very vulgar. Really vulgar. So very vulgar. But she told herself in a much more sophisticated way than Iberian Latin, because Gaulic Latin had changed later and Latin had given Iberian Latin Classical Greek words. 

Latin was seeing Classical Greek. Had made Classical Greek an official language, but that did not matter. Classical Greek had never burned down Latin's home, her home of Rome. That had to mean something. 

Anyway, Latin had changed too. Grown more mature in the hundreds of years since she invaded Iberia. So it did not matter that she was still occupying Iberian Latin. Sharing an empire with Classical Greek. Latin was with Gaulic Latin in Gaul. Latin was making formed cheese now with the word formāticum. She was not using that old used word caseus that Latin had given Iberian Latin for cheese. (11) 

"I am not that vulgar," said Iberian Latin. She whispered to Basque. "Am I that vulgar? Is that why I am not enough for Latin. I am beginning to think the only reason she invaded me was because of Gaulic. That Latin never felt anything romantic for me. I changed to be full of romance for her. Am I just… vulgar?" 

"You are a beautiful dialect," said Basque. Basque felt terrible, but she didn't know what else to say. Did not know what to do to comfort Iberian Latin. 

Gaulic Latin wasn't helping. "Vulgar, oh hoc you are," said Gaulic Latin. "That's the modern way of saying yes. You still use that outdated sic for everything. When I say I speak, I use paraulare. That comes from a Classical Greek word, parabolḗ. Latin never gave you that word did she? She gave it to me. That's why I use paraulare while you merely converse with that outdated fābulārī. Latin has moved on from fābulārī!"(12) 

Latin said, "Languages, languages. As long as we all remember who is capo, then there is room for everyone. Now bring me wine and fish paste." 

Iberian Latin tried to put a good grammatical structure on it, but Basque had know Iberian Latin long enough to know when she was pretending. 

Latin sipped her wine. 

Shivered at a cold northern wind. Eyed Britannia. Eyed north of the Danube. There were still Celtic speaking people in the world. She would never be safe as long as Celtic was spoken. 

Germanic became annoyed. "I am not, nor never shall be, Celtic. I am Germanic. You and I are as closely related as I am to Celtic. She says māthir for her móðir(13). You say māter. I say fadar, you say pater. She says athir. See. All different. I am not Celtic." 

Latin could not be bothered to care. 

Brittonic tossed her fiery verbs and said, "You will never conquer all of me." 

Latin invaded Britannia. 

Brittonic pushed back against this sudden embrace. "I will not yield." Though in the south, she caught an extremely itchy case of venereal Latin. 

"Oh," said Brittonic. "This is how languages actually split." She had a child, Romano Celtic. But because of the circumstances, there was always a wall between them. 

Brittonic's druids muttered about mistletoe in standing stones being the cause of this sudden birth. 

Pictish pinched a vowel. "I have explained and explained why I built the standing stones. It has nothing to do with spontaneous language division. Were you not listening? Clearly Romano Celtic has something to do with Latin invading." 

Brittonic and Romano Celtic looked at each other over the wall. They brushed consonants. They were not listening. "I worry about becoming vulgar as long as I am involved with Latin," whispered Romano Celtic. 

"Do not be," said Brittonic slipping around the wall on a misty night. "I am here for you in the rural areas." 

Latin caught a cold in Britannia. She felt terrible. Latin sneezed, "Romano Celtic in the south is good enough. I have plenty of time to make you vulgar." She sneezed again. "Does anyone have a decongestant?" 

Iberian Latin rushed to give Latin lemons. Gaulic Latin mulled some spiced wine. 

Latin said, "I am the capo." She accepted all the attention. But one thing still bothered her. "There is still Celtic north of the Danube." 

"Still not Celtic," said Germanic. 

One of Latin's historians confirmed that Germanic was a separate language with strange linguistic traditions." 

Latin did not really care. She fought Celtic in the valleys. She fought Celtic in the mountains. She fought Celtic in the marshes. 

Germanic yelled, "I am not Celtic!" and hit Latin in the I. 

Latin went home with blurred pronunciations. She did not even notice that the way she pronounced Iupiter had just shifted from an I to a Y. Iulius had shifted too. (14) 

Gaulic noticed. She liked it. Yulius had been the Latin general to invade her. She thought the Y sound was sophisticated. She looked for other places to use it in her pronunciation. 

Meanwhile, Latin stopped the bleeding. She said, "Fine. You are Germanic. Not Celtic. You stay on your side of the river. I will stay on mine." She looked at her empire. "This is a good. I am getting a little corrupted around the edges. It is harder to keep up communications with all my vulgar languages. But I think this could really last (11)." 

 

+++ 

1- Sister, Latin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_vocabulary 

2- Why yes, I am simplifying the various dialects in Iberia grossly, if not vulgarly. That comes later in the story. 

3 – Latin for thus. So it is written. Becomes Si in Spanish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic Also made its way into French, but that form of yes generally means yes, I don't agree with you. 

4 – Daughter and Mother in Latin. Also, the Latin word for converse, and the source word for Hablar in Spanish and Falar in Portuguese. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hablar. 

5 - The room of a Greek house reserved for men, but… this story features only female and non-gendered languages. So… whatever. Also, the room where the men would drink long into the night, which they claimed to be the center of philosophical discussions called symposiums. http://www.historyforkids.net/greek-homes.html 

6- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/parabole 

7- Which could have been spelled filosophy, rather than creating the ph convention, but they didn't do that. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=philosophy 

8- Which at one point in time is what some variation on that word meant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augury 

9- At the time Germanic borrowed the word vinum, the word was pronounced winam. 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wine 

We'll get to the late Latin shift of w to v in a bit. 

But this is why in English it's wine and in romance languages like French or Italian, the words are vin or vino. They shifted along with Late Latin. Germanic had no reason to do so. 

10 - "this", but eventually comes to be Yes/Oui in French. This is why French is Oui and Spanish is Si. 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=oui&allowed_in_frame=0 

11 – This is why English has cheese and Spanish has Queso – both from caseus http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cheese 

While French has fromage from a Latin word for formed cheese. 

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fromage 

12- This is why I "parle" in French, but "hablo" in Spanish. Because when Latin conquered Iberia, a different word was popular/used for the word speak. Latin picked up parabolḗ from Greece, which became the word for… word and then speech. Rome took over Gaul at a later date and passed on a different word for speech to French and for that matter "parlo" Italian. As with the words for cheese, Language serves as time capsule if you know the history of the word. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/parler 

13 - I'm using Gothic for Germanic here, because it's one of the earliest attested Germanic languages from the Gothic Bible. Ie The difficulty about talking about specific words in languages without written records. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_language 

14 – Probably not the reason that the pronunciation shifted from I to Y.


	7. The Fall of the Roman Empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Classical Greek knew something in her life had to change.
> 
> Latin didn't want to admit that anything had changed. But that's what Latin Club was for.

Classical Greek knew she needed a change. Needed to break out of her rut and live her own life. Not waste her time on a language who was always going off with vulgar languages. Who could not keep her vowels in her dipthong. Classical Greek knew, she just knew, that Latin was the one who had been spreading monothongs with all her labial dental kissing.(1) All her romantic talk. 

Greek dropped the Classical from her name and served Latin divorce papers. 

Latin gawped. "But, we are not married. We are not equal. I am the capo. I am the empire." 

"Just one more reason we need to break up," said Greek setting up house in Constantinople. "I have been the official language of the Eastern Empire ever since we got together. Fifty percent of this empire is mine. I am just glad that you did not make one of your other languages an official language." 

Latin needed Greek. They had been together for so long. She was the cultural heart of the empire. "We can make this work. Please. Give me another chance." 

Greek hated herself for it. She knew Latin was not good for her anymore. If she ever had been. Had always been the one who took words from Greek. But she could not help herself when Latin talked to her like that. They fell back into bed for a little while, but it was no good. Greek said, "Latin, we have had some good years, but… are you looking at Germanic? I cannot believe that here we are trying to work out our issues and you are looking at another language. I am done with this empire." 

Greek split up with Latin. 

Latin did not understand. She tried becoming Christian, read the New Testament, which had been written in Greek, but that did not work. 

Greek set up her own church. "It was all originally in Greek anyway." 

Hebrew sighed. "Are you trying to insult me now?" 

Greek muttered about Latin looking at Germanic. She sent missionaries to where Gothic Germanicdaúhtar was living with her móðir, Germanic(2). 

Greek offered Gothic a job fighting Hunnish(3), a pushy new language, who was coming into Greek and Latin's territories and demanding tribute to go away. 

Gothic accepted Greek's missionaries and a Bible translated into Gothic(4). "Sure. Fine. Everything is horrible. I have all these debts, and my job herding does not earn much. I have to live with my móðir, who keeps going on about how Hunnish is not Germanic, and how when she was a young language she had already gone off and populated entire peninsulas by my age." 

Latin offered Gothic a job fighting Hunnish. 

Gothic said, "Everything is dark. I am doomed to fade away." She went to brood at clouds clinging to a mountain top while reading the particularly sublime bits of Revelation in her new Bible. She also fought Hunnish. "Not that any of it matters." 

"For certain, it is no honeymoon," said Hunnish as she set fire to some Greek towns until Greek paid her to leave. 

Latin said, "This is great. I have Gothic fighting Hunnish for me. Greek is out of my life, but good riddance. She was always telling me what to do. This empire is smaller. More manageable. I could keep this up forever." 

Gothic's swistar, Vandal Germanicdaúhtar said, "You should give me a job too." 

"Uhh," said Latin. 

"You're a good lookin' language. I'd like ta get to know you better." Vandal cleaned the Latin's carvings with muddy water. "Now pay me." 

"Uhh," said Latin. "Sure, I guess. But. Sign a contract." 

"Great," said Vandal. She was late to work. Argued all the time with her girlfriend Hunnish. Then to add insult to injury, Vandal sacked the city of Rome. Not to be confused with the Roman emperor's pet rooster, who was fine. 

Latin leafed through the paperwork. "Sacking Rome was definitely not in the contract. 

Vandal burned the contract. "Not runic. Not following it." 

Latin almost protested that Germanic got the runes from Etruscan. Remembered that she had promised herself that she would never acknowledge that Etruscan existed. That had been so long ago. She had been so young. 

She felt old. 

Latin pointed at Rome. "From this day forward when anyone says vandal, they will mean," she waved a noun at the burned and broken buildings, "this. Now get off my lawn." 

Gothic sighed. "I told you everything was all meaningless." 

Latin did not know what to do. She hired Lombard Germanicdaúhtar and Fankish Germanicdaúhtar with much more solid contracts. 

Lombard shoved Gothic out of the Italic peninsula. "I work this beat now." 

"It does not matter," said Gothic. 

Gothic started seeing Iberian Latin by way of setting up a little kingdom in Iberia. 

Gothic said, "We are all doomed to die and waste away. Even this bright sunshine filled day will pass into darkness." 

Iberian Latin said, "That is so profound." 

"Wait, Gothic, dating my languages is not in your contract." Latin pointed to the contract. "I am the capo language! You work for me! You are one of my confederate languages!" 

"That is one of the things I like about her. That and the way she says caballero," said Iberian Latin. 

"She got that from me!" yelled Latin. 

Iberian Latin flapped a noun at her. "I am tired of always being your last thought. I have been thinking of aspirating. You gave me all these words with hard consonants at the back of my mouth and then expected me to say vowels at the front of the mouth. Then criticize me when I try to soften them. It… I cannot keep fronting for you anymore.(5) And the letter f. I want to make it an h."(6) 

Latin said, "But honey, you are the one who gives me lemons and honey." 

Iberian Latin leaned close to Gothic. "I have a new honey." 

Latin was in a panic. She pulled out of Romano Celtic prematurely, which left Romano Celtic snarling in dissatisfaction and not feeling particularly romantic. Latin said to Romano Celtic as she ran off the island. "You are on your own." 

"Come back! It was finally getting good," yelled Romano Celtic. She tried to pull herself together. Keep up appearances. 

"Hey there," said Scottish Gaelic. She leaned over the wall. She wasn't even a daughter of Brittonic. She was one of Anti(7) Goidelic's children. 

"Do not do, that!" Romano Celtic piled some rocks along the coast. "Latin, please come back. At least finish what you started." 

"I could, you know," said Anglian Germandaúhtar, "finish what Latin started. You can... call me Sea Wolf if you like. I would like it if you called my name while we blended." 

"How did..." Romano Celtic looked around. "How many children did Germanic have? I cannot believe we used to argue over how many Celtic languages there were." 

Saxon Germandaúhtar nudged Jute Germandaúhtar. "I think she wants us." 

Romano Celtic said, "I am building a wall. Along the sea. To keep your family out. Except any family members I need to defend myself and do the work that I do not want to do." 

Germanic said to her children, "In my day, I was conquering peninsulas. None of this working for empire." 

Her children moved a little farther away from her. 

Iberian Latin was feeling conflicted. She had been feeling neglected by Latin it felt like since forever. But Gothic wasn't all that interested in sharing words. She had to repair this new relationship. But as soon as she became pregnant, she knew it was mistake. 

Gothic sighed. "I just wanted to build churches with peaked roofs." 

Latin said, "But Iberian Latin, I gave you roads. Aqueducts. Coliseums." 

Iberian Latin gave birth to Catalan. Now she had a baby and felt even more alone. Exhausted. 

Gothic said, "Nothing matters." 

"That does not help," said Iberian Latin. 

Basque came to visit with a few supplies. Iberian Latin looked at Basque. Really looked at her. Realized that Basque had always been a shoulder to cry on when Latin went off with another language. Was there for her now. Helped her with baby Catalan. Understood her. Cared. 

One snow flung winter's night, nestled in a warm village, she told Basque that her feelings had changed. She wanted to know if Basque felt the same way. 

"All along," said Basque. 

Soon Iberian Latin found herself with child on the way. 

With little Catalan, not yet weaned, and baby Castilian screaming for the same milk, Iberian Latin said tiredly to both, "Don't fight." 

The languages, even as infants, glared at each other. 

Basque did her best to entertain the children. While still keeping the romance alive with Iberian Latin, which led to another child on the way. 

Latin was forced to conclude that given that Iberian Latin was pregnant with a third child by another language, perhaps their relationship was over. 

Latin said to Gaulic Latin, "You are still with me right?" 

Frankish, who had been quietly working for Latin in Gaul, said, "Scorn would I to treat a lovely language so with the ragged rags of verbs."(8) Frankish gently picked up Gaulic Latin's grammar. "Let loose Latin roots and from this time forth plant anew." 

Gaulic Latin flushed. "I guess you have not noticed," she glanced down, "I have worn a low Germanic dipthong since you came." She moved closer. "I would wish for you to come again." 

Frankish was in no way like Latin. She had not been romanized at all. 

The resulting vigorous word sharing between Frankish and Gaulic Latin resulted in birth of the Franca twins: Langue D'Oil and Langue D'Oc. They both insisted on softening G and C. They also kept many H spellings, but did not say the H. They disagreed on how to say hoc. 

In the south, Franca D'Oc simply dropped the H of Hoc and said, "Oc." 

In the north, Franca D'Oil dropped the H and C, and added an il after the O to clearly indicate that she agreed with it. Playfully elided into, "Oil."(9) 

Latin muttered. "Of course, you would have the gall to call yourself yes languages." Glared over the Alps. "You are the most Germanic of all the romance languages. And by the way, the H in hoc, herb and heir are all spoken." 

"No. They are not." Franca D'Oil adjusted the hang of her dipthongs. "We are the most romantic languages ever." 

Franca Langue D'Oc wrote romantic poetry while sitting in a vineyard overlooking a pleasant river while building walls around all her towns with the remains of all the Latin buildings. 

Latin said, "But. You could be Latin again." 

Catholic Latin dried the nib of her pen from where she had been quietly writing. Had a brief consultation with Monastic Latin, who was spoken by the missionaries that Eirish Gaelic was sending to the continent. Cleared her nouns meaningfully. 

Latin asked, "What?" 

Catholic Latin handed Latin the Aeneid. 

"What?" asked Latin. 

Catholic Latin looked at Monastic Latin, who rolled her vowels. Monastic Latin said, "Latin," muttered, "If we should call you that," and then more loudly, "How do you pronounce words starting in C? Say the word for hundred." 

Latin said, "Chentum." Paused. Tried again. "Chentum." Flailed at Catholic Latin and Monastic Latin. "What has happened?" 

Catholic Latin consulted with Greek, who had been married to Latin for hundreds of years after all. Then consulted with Monastic Latin because Catholic Latin was not sure if she trusted Greek. "It would seem that you have… when a language gets to a certain age. A thousand years give or take. You are not a young language anymore. You may have noticed somewhere along the way you started pronouncing wine with as a V at the beginning." 

Monastic Latin laughed, "While Germanic is still pronouncing wine the way you spoke the word when they originally borrowed it from you." 

"Which, I will note, they borrowed and never returned," said Catholic Latin while swallowing some wine for sacramental purposes. Took a deep breath. "And there's the matter of the way you say Iulius and Iupiter." 

"What about Julius and Jupiter," said Latin. 

"For one thing, eventually we are going to have to invent the letter J for the sound you just made just to deal with how you are pronouncing Iupiter," said Monastic Latin. "It was bad enough when you pronounced I like a Y after Germanic punched you in I and broke it. But now… I and J are just, they are not the same sound." 

Monastic Latin said, "Personally, I will never admit J and I are not the same letter. We do not need a new letter. I can have some scribes wave the quill around a little. No one can tell when we write I anyway." 

"I do not understand," said Latin. "Also, why are you talking to yourself like that?" 

"First rule of Latin Club. Do not talk about Latin Club." They both said. At the same time. With the same breath. 

"But I am Latin," said Latin. "If there is a club, then I am the club." 

Catholic Latin looked at Monastic Latin. "You tell her." 

Monastic Latin said, "Oh, for… You have aspirated all over the place. Consonant shifts everywhere. You are a new language." Monastic Latin took a swig of beer. Dark bitter beer. "There we have said it. And stop calling yourself Latin. You are not Latin. You are a romance language like all the other vulgar languages." 

Latin looked down and realized that she was a new language, Italodalmation. "Look how young and attractive I have become." 

"Sure," said Catholic Latin. 

In Byzantium, Greek sniggered. "Whatever makes you happy. I am going to rule all the east forever. Every new religion will be written in the Greek alphabet." 

Somewhere in the desert, Arabic said, "Challenge accepted," and watched proudly as a new religion was written down in Arabic with her script. It was a bestseller. 

As Arabic swept into Iberia, Castilian told her madre(10), "One of these days I'd like to go conquistador some place in the world and…" She accepted thousands of words, mathematics, libraries, and a new architectural style from Arabic, "thanks. But as I was saying I would like to screw some other languages over. Rather than constantly getting screwed over as you have done." 

Catalan said to her sister Portuguese, "But where are we going to find some new languages to screw over?" 

A question that Norrœnt might have answered, but she didn't have writing. 

Eirish Gaelic did have writing and also knew the answer, but was too busy sending missionaries to convert High German to focus on Castilian's problems.  
++++ 

1 - That, not Latin's fault. Other things yet, but that, no. 

2 - Daughter and Mother respectively. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/germanic.htm 

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunnic_language 

4- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Bible 

5 - According to Wikipedia, the article has issue, but... some useful stuff. Iberian Latin is describing one kind of sound change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change 

6 - Not exactly Spanish, but heading there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgar_Latin 

7 - Aunt. Welsh Gaelic. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

8 - A Germanic word that made it into French and from French into English. 

9 - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oui 

10 - Mother in Castilian Spanish.


	8. I am walking up Breadon Hill.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Celtic people were driven from Britannia by the Germanic Invaders.
> 
> Completely driven out. Yes. Probably.

Dark Ages.(1) 

The dōhtors(2) wilding of Ingvaeonic Germandōhtors had been raised up along the northern whale-roads. Well washed their ships were with waves. Their mōdor had raised them well on the simple pleasures of fishing, farming, and fucking(3) up the farms of Latin. The Celtic family too had not been neglected in these matters. 

They gathered now to mourn the fading of Ingvaeonic's sounds from the song-singers. The tale-tellers. It had been her will to pass into word-dōhtors. To go from wandering into the white-hall where Wodan waited for weary-words. 

They placed her word-house upon her wave-rider. Her sailing-ship was well stocked with strong-verbs for her Wodan-journey. Her dōhtors called out as they set it upon the waves, "Strong! Sing, sang, sung.(4)" 

Frisian, who had come from tending her fields of leeks did not comment that they could have said, "Strong is the same as irregular. Am, are, is." No, she did her duty and went back to her fields of leeks. 

Three of her sweostor(5) followed her well soused on songs and sauced-words. Anglian spoke first. She beat her linden-wood. "Our verbs are strong!" 

"Strong!" yelled Saxon and Jute. 

"Yes, they are strong," agreed Frisian while tending her fields of leeks. 

"They are not weak verbs like other languages!" yelled Anglian. "Our every verb has a different form. We sing. We sang. We sung." 

"Sing! Sang! Sung!" yelled Saxon and Jute. 

Frisian loved her mōdor. She did not speak of their mōdor who had gone to mighty Wodan. He who hung himself on the world-tree for runes. She was no foreseer to know of the confusion that would come over hang, hung, hanged. 

She also did not say they could as well shout, "Sink, sank, sunk," when speaking of their mōdor. She loved her mōdor as a dōhtor should. But no language could command the sea or hold back silence. She worked upon the wall that held back the waves. She did eventually say, "I could use a verb for when water comes through a hole in a wall." She tended to her field of leeks. 

Anglian was not done. She said, "And our pronouns, they are strong like the pronouns of our elder mōdors.(6) A form for every gender. For the subject and the object. We are the subject and word order is meaningless to us!" 

"Meaningless," yelled Saxon and Jute. 

"But all our pronouns do sound really similar," sighed Frisian. "I do wonder if we should have started all of them with h." 

"Who is with me!" yelled Anglian. 

"I am!" yelled Saxon and Jute. 

"I like things here," said Frisian. "I have leaky leek fields. Oh, hey, there is a word."(7) 

Her sweostors did not hear her as they set sail. They went over the whale-road to where they could wander and write runes upon walls. 

Romano Celtic saw the runes written on her walls. She looked down into the dark-age. She knew better than to write to Latin for help, but still she did. Then she gathered herself and her warrior bands. Her great war-leader. 

What occurred was unwritten. What was said was unchronicled. There was mist. 

Romano Celtic put her youngest merc'h(8) on a boat to Gaul. Brezhoneg said, "It was terrible. But this I promise, someday, I will return singing the songs of our war leader Arturus, who fought those invaders." She looked around the peninsula where she must now live. "I rename myself Breton and this place Brittany in memory of my mamm(9)." 

Romano Celtic sent her eldest myrgh(10), Kernewek, into the south west. Into Cornwall. She sent her merch(11), Cymraeg, to the mountains in the west. Cymraeg said, "We are doing very well, mam(12)." 

Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Manx agreed they were doing fine. Manx said, "We were never even invaded by Latin. She never even so much as breathed on our moir(13)." 

"I punted their wee pasty vowels south a tha wall," shouted Scottish Gaelic. "Stay away from our màthair(14)." 

Brittonic, grown old fighting, frowned. "I drove back Latin. That was me. In the north. You arrived this morning. I let you into my mead-hall as a favour to my c'hoar(15), Goidelic. Now you eat the food from my plate." 

Romano Celtic would only say, "What happens in the mist, stays in the mist." She did offer this comfort to Brittonic, along with letters from Cymraeg and Kernewek, "Most of the hill in the south of our rainy isle are named some variant of hill in Brittonic and then hill in Germanic." Then muttered, "What would be really amusing is if some future variation of the language stuck their variant for hill after it."(16) 

Anglo-Saxon, who was born from some blending Anglian, Saxon and Jute, heard Romano Celtic. She decided she needed to do something about that conversation. 

They walked up Breadon Hill. Anglo-Saxon said, "I heard you talking with Kernewek. I do not believe that you would talk about me like that. Your own dōhtor." 

"Brat(17), I am only your mathir when we are alone," said Romano Celtic. "You talk about refusing to use my words when we are walking up one of those places. You call me a Wealas in my own country." (18) 

"I cannot believe that you always do this to me! Earthling," said Anglo-Saxon. (18) 

Romano Celtic held out her verbs. Seamed with the strong adverbs that come of working the land. "I do not feel shame in working the earth." 

In silence, they walked. 

"I am working on borrowing your verbs." Anglo-Saxon crossed her nouns. "I am trying. Some times It is hard for me to pick up new verbs." She inflected her stiff affixes on her strongly defined stems. 

"I do know that." Romano Celtic sat down upon a tor, "I do not like it when we argue like this. It does not help either of us." She held out her nouns.(20) 

"Do what you want to do," sniffed Anglo-Saxon sitting down next to her. "I am sitting. It has nothing to do with you. I sit when I want to." 

"Oh, brat. You have tangled your grammar again." Romano Celtic sat down with Anglo-Saxon to braid her grammatical forms(21). 

 

+++ 

1 - And the return of alliteration to this story. Anglo-Saxon poetry has a great deal of alliteration and all those stock phrases like swan-road to help create alliteration. 

2 - Daughter in Old English. https://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/oldenglish.html 

3 - I will note, the word fuck doesn't start being attested until the 1500s, possibly related to the PIE word strike, but now that we're finally getting to something that will become English… it'll be making rather more appearances. 

4 - These are in fact an example of strong verbs with a different form for each word. A "weak" verb simply means that the stem of the word does not change much between inflections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb 

5 - Sister in Old English. https://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/oldenglish.html 

6 - In anglo saxon, grand parents were elder, not grand or great. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandparent 

Also, Mother in Dutch. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/germanic.htm 

7 - Just to be clear, I'm not implying a connection between the words. 

8 - Daughter in Breton. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

9 - Mother in Breton. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

10 - Daughter in Cornish Gaelic. 

11 - Daughter in Welsh Gaelic, err… Cymreag, since Welsh means foreigner as discussed when I brought up walnuts back in chapter 2. 

12 - Mother in Cymreag Gaelic. 

13 - Mother in Manx. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

14 - Mother in Scottish Gaelic. 

15 - Sister in Breton. 

16 - In the transition regions in the Mid East-West region of England, there are many combined place names. 

Pendel hill - Pen was Celtic meaning hill. Angles were the dominant tribe in that region. They named the hill Pen + del (hill in Germanic). Now it's Pendel Hill, which means Hill+Hill+Hill. 

Breadon Hill - Another Celtic word Brea meaning hill (lots of words for hill, the Celts) + Doon a Germanic word meaning hill. Since we stick Hill at the end, the name of Breadon hill means, Hill+Hill+Hill. 

17 - Brat is possibly derived from Celtic. 

18 - Also, it eventually meant slave as evidenced in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Eventually, it meant less generally Celtics, but the Celts in… Wales. 

19 - Ing is a Germanic suffix for "of". Earth meant the earth, soil. So this very early word meant someone who is of and worked with the earth. A ploughmen. A farmer. It got it's sci fi meaning in the renaissance. 

20 – Tor. From Latin? From Celtic? From Germanic? Well, we have it now. 

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tor 

21 - English uses do... a lot. "How do you do that? What did he say? When does she get her tablet? Does it surprise you? I do not like it. He does not have any. She did not see him." That's a Celtic grammatical form. Also, in most PIE languages (like Germanic) the present form is some variation on "I speak. I write. I sing." In Celtic, there is a present form that boils down to "I am writing." In English, I can write, "I write," but I am just as likely to write, "I am writing." These examples, as most of the examples in this story, are taken from an episode of the "History of English" podcast. Check out "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue" for more on this as well.


	9. Four Runes and Yogh

Franca D'Oil could hear Anglo-Saxon of Kent complaining about verbal decrees all the way across the channel.  

Catholic Latin tugged on her robes and told Franca D'Oil, "You should send her the Latin alphabet and convert her to Christianity while you are it." 

"You could send her the Latin Alphabet," said Franca D'Oil.  

Catholic Latin rapped her nouns with an adjective. "I do not know her. You are the most Germanic of my children. You will introduce us."  

Franca D'Oil sighed and sent Anglo-Saxon of Kent the Latin alphabet.  

Catholic Latin said, "It is much easier to track laws if you have this."  

Anglo-Saxon of Kent said, "But I have writing." She held up futhoric runes.  

"Euh…" said Franca D'Oil. "That is." She looked at Catholic Latin, who gave her some encouragement. "If you use the alphabet, you will be able to write other lands, because we use the same script. It will show the rest of us how mature and sophisticated you are." 

"You might even want to convert to Christianity," said Catholic Latin. "Franca D'Oil will throw in a Francish princess or two for your kings."  

Franca D'Oil sighed.  

"It is a nice script." Anglo-Saxon of Kent used the Latin alphabet to write down a set of decrees in Anglo-Saxon.  

Catholic Latin poked Franca D'Oil in the nouns. Franca D'Oil said, "You were supposed to write that down in Latin."   

"Why?" Said Anglo-Saxon of Kent. "I am Germanic. Why would I write in Latin? I may go Christian, but I draw the line at writing in a dead language that my relatives helped kill."  

"I am not dead," said Catholic Latin. "I am a very healthy language."  

"I do not get to write my laws in Franca D'Oil," muttered Franca D'Oil, she thought fairly softly. Yet was still loud enough that she received a rap on the nouns by Catholic Latin.  

Anglo-Saxon of Kent said, "You are missing some letters for sounds." She spat out a few aspirated consonants.  

"That is just breathing," said Franca D'Oil.   

Anglo-Saxon of Kent discussed the alphabet with Anglfolc of Northumbria, who said, "I will add some runes to fix the alphabet."  

"It is perfect as it is," said Catholic Latin. 

West-Saxon said, "It needs work if we are going to write in Anglo-Saxon dialects." 

Catholic Latin made a gesture at Franca D'Oil to say something. 

Catholic Latin poked at Franca D'Oil, who said with a weary voice, "If you write everything in Latin like a literary language, you will not need those heathen runes."  

Anglfolc of Northumbria was not listening. "There is no letter for W. Why would I write about Wodan to West Saxon in a script with no W?" 

"You are converting," said Franca D'Oil. 

"And this means I cannot have a W?"  

"There is a letter for W," said Franca D'Oil pointing at the letter V, or it might have been a U. The difference was mostly whether the letter was carved or written. "Use that letter for words like use, word or vin," said Franca D'Oil helpfully.  

"You mean wine," said Anglfolc of Northumbria. "I need phonetics for U, V and W." She tapped the page. "I will use the rune ,Wynn(1) for writing words and the letter F if I need f, u or v. Now where is your letter for the 'th' sound? 

"Write TH," said Catholic Latin. "That is how I have always dealt with aspirated sounds." 

"No. I need a character." Anglefolc of Northumbria discussed the matter with her sweostors. "Two letters. I will add ð, Eth, and þ, Thorn, which sounds tough." 

"That does sound tough," said Anglo-Saxon of Kent. 

Franca D'Oil looked at what Angllefolc of Northumbria had written. "Wynn and Thorn both look like P," said Franca D'Oil, who immediately hated the new letters. She was not allowed to add letters to make the alphabet work better for her. If she was not even allowed her own script, no one should be allowed to make changes. 

Anglefolc of Northumbria made a decisive swipe of the quill. "It is my favourite letter. I am not giving it up. That just leaves the æ, Ash, for your missing vowel."  

"Exactly." Anglo-Saxon of Kentish made a sound between an A and an E.  

"It is not missing!" said Franca D'Oil.   

West Saxon wrote some poetry. Anglo-Saxon of Kent wrote more decrees. Anglefolc of Northumbria wrote about a dream she had one night in her dream journal.  

Franca D'Oil looked at Catholic Latin. "Are you sure I cannot write in vernacular?" She got another rap on the nouns for her question.  

Catholic Latin said, "Everyone should write in my alphabet in Latin, which is the language of salvation. You cannot add letters." 

Monastic Latin sailed over from Ireland to England. "Anglo-Saxon dialects, I could not help but hear you from Eire. I would be happy to help you with smithing out the letters."  

"You are not wanted!" said Catholic Latin.  

"But you are the same..." Anglo-Saxon of Kent shrugged. "I honestly do not care." Glared at the letters. "I am a hard bitten Germanic language. I will only using the hard C. None of this soft lingua franca C nonsense."  

Monastic Latin said, "My other mater was Goidelic Celtic. I fully support you in adding runes and using a hard C. In fact, have this extra letter." Monastic Latin gave Anglo-Saxon of Kent a fancy G.

Ȝ  
 

She showed it off to her sweoster, Anglfolc of Northumbria, who fell in love with the letter. Anglfolc of Northumbria said, "We could call this Yogh and use it for G and Y." 

"Those letters are not missing," said Franca D'Oil. 

"Sounds lovely," said Monastic Latin. 

The sweostors liked their new monasteries.   

Monastic Latin trimmed the tips of her pens. "Now, since I've come all this way, you might want to borrow a few words. Just for legal and religious purposes. I am the language of education and law."  

"Oh," said Catholic Latin. "Oh, I see. Yes. Do that."  

Monastic Latin said, "Right. The first rule of Latin Club, remember."  

Anglo-Saxon looked at the new words. She was an inflective language, but not as stiff as her mōdors. Not so much that she couldn't pick up a word or twenty. Quietly wrote some poetry on the back of her linden wood shield.   

In vernacular.  

"This makes us the first attested Germanic language to be written down," said Anglo-Saxon of Kent proudly.  

Gothic quietly wept on a mountain top while reading the more fantastic bits of Revelation. "It does not matter. There is no meaning to anything anyway."   

An Anglo-Saxon poet wrote down a version of Beowulf. A poet wrote down the fantastic tale of a wandering poet who was well paid and much admired across all of Europe called "The Wanderer", which admittedly had long been a favourite tale as told by singers  everywhere, but now it was in writing.   

Priests started giving religious services in Anglo-Saxon dialects.   

Monastic Latin was fine with that, and had in fact done the translations, but Catholic Latin thought it was scandalous. After all, if the sermons were translated, who could be certain what people were saying?  

"Me," said Monastic Latin. She smiled. "This means I can send my missionaries to go preach to the Saxons and the Friesians. Get some respect." 

"That is… fine," said Catholic Latin. "Franca D'Oil could do it." 

Franca D'Oil said, "I am a Germanic language. Somewhat. Actually, they cannot understand me."  

Saxon said, "You are not Germanic."  

Anglo-Saxon of Kent said, "My manifest shows that you want to borrow one order of Christianity, some Latin Bibles and the Latin alphabet. Are you certain that you do not want to sign up for writing in the vernacular. It does not cost that much extra and is a real value add."  

Friesian and Saxon checked how much they had budgeted for the conversion. "No, I think we will just stay with the original order."  

Anglo-Saxon of Kent wrote down their order and added Monastic Latin.  

That was Monastic Latin's idea.  

Franca D'Oil quietly worked with her great king Carl on a new softer script. If she could not write in the vernacular, at least she could write in a new soft flowing style that better reflected how she combined sophisticated Latin with a touch of tough Germanic roots.    

Catholic Latin said, "I do not know if I like this new font. The case is very low."(3) 

Franca D'Oil wrote in her new Carolingian script. "I could ask Monastic Latin's opinion." 

Monastic Latin said, "I would be delighted to help you with your script." 

Catholic Latin told herself not to bring up Latin club. "Fine." 

++++ 

1 -https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2009/12/14/w-the-further-adventures/

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_Latin_alphabet> 

<http://langscape.org.uk/OEtutorial/thealphabet.html> 

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_runes> 

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm 

2 - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogh> 

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_minuscule


	10. Pox of the Vikings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well cursed was Anglo-Saxon by that accursed Norrœnt. Broken and battered, but not beaten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes non-con as Old Norse assaults all the languages. Also, gets drunk with Old French and has Norman.

In the south of Anglaland , Wesaxon, spoke with a pronounced southern drawl that she had of her mōdor, Saxon.   

Mercian and Northumbrian spoke much as Anglian had. While Kentish had been struck from the same stone as Jute.(1)   

Anglo-Saxon had been born of blending. Now her dōhtors in their kingdoms drifted once more into sweosters(2). It was as slow as the passage of the sky-jewel. With nothing that was swift as a sparrow-flight. Nothing…   

Northumbrian screamed.  

"What the fuck!" yelled Mercian.  

Norrœnt shouted, "I steal your things."(3) She hit Northumbrian in the inflexions. Hit on Mercian's gendered pronouns.    

Northumbrian, Mercian, Anglian, and Wesaxon screamed.   

Norrœnt pelted their windows with eggs(4).  

Soon Norrœnt was everywhere on the misty-island. She was up every creek. She was of the creeks and rivers. There was no stopping her passage.   

Wesaxon called her Viking to acknowledge the truth that this language was of the rivers and they were all up her shite creek. Wesaxon said, "Now, do not you worry sweosters. I know what to do," and hid in a marsh for a few years thinking. She thought that a language spoken only on a small island in the middle of a marsh was not much of a language.   

It was a very sad time for Wesaxon.   

All over, there was sorrow and tears.   

Norrœnt went to Franca D'Oil's land. She stole from Franca D'Oil and Franca D'Oc. She took their fine things. She burned down their fine buildings. She killed their speakers. Their singers of songs.  

She sailed all the way up to Paris. This was where she was stopped. Franca D'Oil of Paris said, "You sailed too far into my land. You have come to Paris. Look around you. For you are few and we are many."   

Norrœnt shrugged. "And?"  

Franca D'Oil of Paris said, "Sit. Have a beer and bread. There cannot have been much good bread upon your boat."  

Catholic Latin said, "What you doing? You need to fight them. They burned my churches. That is where I keep all my belongings."  

"I have this well in hand," said Franca D'Oil of Paris. She sat with Norrœnt and they shared beer.   

Norrœnt drank the beer. It was not mead, but it was good. Norrœnt found herself agreeing with Franca D'Oil of Paris. She found herself falling asleep.   

She was woken up by Franca D'Oil who said, "You've been shouting at yourself."  

Norrœnt got up. Fought herself drunk and more than a little confused.   

When she was done, Franca D'Oil gave her more beer. Told her tales of the mighty Emperor Charlemagne and all his great deeds. Of the script form that he had commissioned with her help. 

Norrœnt became very drunk. So drunk that she was only vaguely aware that Franca D'Oil had a fille(5) that she named Norman after her Northern mère(6). Norman talked with Norrœnt about sailing.  

Norrœnt found herself on a boat sailing away from Franca D'Oil well hung on beer. Whenever she went back, Norman would fight with her. Norman would yell, "You do not understand me and you never will! You abandoned my mère and have never loved me." She would strike Norrœnt. Then just as often, she would welcome her in and offer her beer when she visited.  

Norrœnt decided that the Anglo-Saxon systers(7) were less confusing. Still, no sooner had she settled into a comfortable seat, but that she was word order slammed by Wesaxon, who had climbed back out of the marsh with her great king, Alfred.  

Wesaxon drove Norrœnt out of her region as a herdswoman drives a cow.  

Wesaxon declared, "I have renamed myself. I am Anglisc." This was her great King Alfred's idea. He had this idea to wed all the Anglo-Saxon languages together again as Anglisc. They wrote many decrees together. Built many fortified town. It was then that her affection for Monastic Latin grew even stronger. So close was Anglisc of Wesaxon with she.  

But still, Wesaxon was not strong enough to fight Norrœnt far from her lands. She beat her lindenwood shield at her border. "Bless your heart, but you need to get off my yard."  

Norrœnt wrapped nouns around Northumbrian. Touched Kentish in the genders. Pinched Mercian on her inflexions.   

Kentish said, "Wexason, help."  

"Now I know you heard me when I said call me Anglisc now. Help me, help you." Together they pushed Norrœnt away from Kentish. They pushed her north and to the east of Anglaland. "I am Anglisc and we live in Anglaland. You should call yourself Anglisc too."  

Kentish agreed. "As long as you keep Norrœnt away from me." She looked down. "I caught –s endings from her."  

"Honey, don't you worry your pretty little verbs about it. We will just keep that part out of the written record," promised Anglisc of Wesaxson.   

Monastic Latin agreed. "We will not record what has been done to you. We will conceal your shame."  

Anglisc of Wesaxon told Norrœnt, "Now listen here. This here is our treaty. That there is the Danelaw. The rest is Anglisc territory. Norrœnt, now you just have to stay away from Anglisc of Kentish. You stay away from me or I am fixing to do you in with dom."   

Her warriors beat their lindenwood with swords. "Doom!" they chanted. (8) 

Mercian staggered up where Norrœnt had struck skulls. She picked up her sword and with her sweosters beat Norrœnt back. She said, "You've already fucked me up to the point that I barely notice that fuck is a fucking weak verb. I am not fucking catching any more fucked up weak verbs from you. Anglisc of Wesaxon, Kentish, help me get this sweostor fucking language the fuck away from me."  

"Anglisc of Mercian," wrote Anglisc of Wesaxson on the treaty. "I will just add Anglisc of Mercian down here at the end of the treaty. That will fix things up nice."  

Northumbrian had lost her sword. She had been the first to be hit. She was scared. What then occurred was not her fault. In this, she was blameless. She looked to her sweostors, but they were not strong enough. They had only enough strength to hold Norrœnt from themselves and only then by often paying Norrœnt a gift to stay away.  

Norrœnt firmly gripped Northumbrian's nouns and said, "I will build a family with you." She said that with similar, but not identical inflections to Northumbrian. She said this with similar, but not identical pronouns to Northumbrian. She told Northumbrian, "You will have to blend with me." Norrœnt held up the treaty. "It is the law. The Danelaw."  

Northumbrian said, "It is my doom." She shook with fear. "I can almost understand you. This must be because Ingvaeonic was our common elder moder." She wept and weeping said, "I cannot believe I enjoyed Beowulf."   

Norrœnt said, "I destroyed the Geats!" She hit Northumbrian claiming that, "This is for your own good." What occurred then was not good. It was not good for Northumbrian.   

Northumbrian was a battered language. She wandered her fields dazed and confused.   

She did not know if those t-tunics everyone wore should be called shirts or skirts. She vaguely knew that Anglo-Saxon dialects had gotten rid of the SK sound, but she had caught it once more from Norrœnt.   

She could not tell if she "wished" things were different or if she "wanted" things to be different. If she "slew" dragons or dragons "slaughtered" villages. If a person had "skin" or a "hide". If birds had "wings" or "feathers". Maybe both.  

She was certain that the nasty version of any word was probably from Norrœnt, and while it was convenient to have two slightly different words for many concepts, she ached all over from where Norrœnt thrust into her pronouns.  

Some of her pronouns were still hers and started with an h. But some, they started with a th sound. They, them and theirs, she was certain they were caught from Norrœnt. She honestly had no idea where "she" had come from.  

Anglisc of Wesaxon yelled to Northumbria, "I am fixing to rid this island of all these Vikings and save Anglisc."  

Northumbrian, nursing her broken grammar, shook her pronouns. "What is broken cannot be fixed."  

Now things did settle down in the Danelaw. Norrœnt grew more settled at least. When she did not abide by the restraint of the Danelaw, Angliscs were able to keep Norrœnt away by paying her with gifts.  

One Thursday, Northumbrian went speak with Anglisc of Mercia in her house of London while Norrœnt was stealing from Anglisc of Kentish. She said, "Do not tell Wesaxon, but there is this ringing in my genders."  

Anglisc of Mercian said, "Fuck! I do not know how to tell you this. Just. Fuck! This is…that fucker really fucked you up! "   

Northumbrian looked down and she or rather it realized that it had lost its genders. Doors were not female. Knives were not male. They were all just… it. More insult was then added.   

Its inflections were almost all gone. It had not only caught –s endings to indicate plural, but inflexions for –ed, -d and -t. All stronger inflections had been beaten away. Northumbrian sadly added, "Norrœnt has made me a poxy as whore." 

"That is not fucking true," said Anglisc of Mercia. "This not your fucking fault. That fucker can't even say whore."  

The sweosters then shared a laugh that Norrœnt pronounced whore like ore, Wodan as Odin. They mocked Norrœnt from the safety of Anglisc of Mercian's house of London.   

Anglisc of Mercian gently put a poultice of -eth on Northumbrian's weakened verbs. She consoled Northumbrian. "At least your pronouns are still different based on if you are talking about the object or the subject of the sentence. I and me. They and them."  

"But now I not only have different forms, but I have to put them in a certain order too. I am trapped in my old way of speech and have caught a new method to deal with my pain. You do not have to do that. You can place I or them anywhere you want in a sentence. While I cannot never get no understanding for why my life is like this!"  

"There you see," said Anglisc of Mercian. "Look at you using all those multiple negatives to emphasize how much you do not understand as is completely natural. Rely on the natural instincts of your speakers. A lifetime of knowing when to use I or me."  

They looked out at where Norrœnt was throwing nightsoil at Anglisc of Kentish's house.  

Anglisc of Mercian said, "If you had not developed a fucking word order, we would not know what the fuck Norrœnt was saying."   

"But sweoster, it is as if I am caught in the snare of hell. As if I balance on a knife never knowing if she will go berserk over some imagined sleight, ransack our home or hit my inflections." (9) 

Anglisc of Mercian did not have words of comfort. Only regret over the sickness they had both caught of Norrœnt.  

Just then Norrœnt came to the very door of Anglisc of Mercian's house. Her house of London.   

Norrœnt hit the walls of London demanding a gift. Demanding that all of Northumbrian come out of London.  

Anglisc of Mercian yelled over the walls of London at Norrœnt, "You fuckers can go fuck yourself. This is the largest fucking city on this fucking island and we will fuck you up if you fucking try to fucking take this fucking city. Fuck off!" Anglisc of Mercian and the speakers of her city fucked up Norrœnt and anyone who tried to fuck with London.  

Some speakers of Northumbrian stayed with Anglisc of Mercian. Anglisc of Kentish and Anglisc of Wesaxon visited too.   

In truth, their speakers liked the idea of a big city with big walls that could tell Norrœnt to fuck off.   

London was a big city, by standards of the day, but there was still only room for one bed for all those languages to lie down. Just one big cognate filled bed. With a thick down tick and tickling verbs. They made a child in that bed.   

They all looked at it and Anglisc of Mercian said, "I am calling it fucking Englisc."  

"How about just Englisc," said Northumbrian. "It is beautiful." 

"Bless your heart, the little darling has almost no infections. No gender," said Anglisc of Wesaxon. "What will we tell people?"  

Anglisc of Kentish shrugged. "You are the one who controls all the writing right now. Just pretend it has not happened."  

Anglisc of Wesaxon decided that she liked this plan of not writing down the nasty things coming out of up North. She did not like the idea of new words. She was just too stiff for that sort of nonsense.She decided to focus on getting Norrœnt away from sweostor. 

Northumbria sighed in relief when Anglisc of Wesaxon finally succeeded in getting a restraining order against Norrœnt and for the most part got rid of her. Oh, she skulked around invading. Stealing things, but she no longer had a key to the kingdom.  

Anglisc of Wesaxon said, "Now this is nice. We are united in Anglaland. With tribute coming in from Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, and Scots."  

"I am not named Welsh," said Cymreag.  

Scots said, "I'll na be callin' meself Anglisc, I can tell ya tha."  

"That is all just fine," said Anglisc of Wesaxon. "As long as we all remember that I am the first among Germanic equals."  

Anglisc of Wesaxon was finally able to live the good life. Enjoy herself. Make herself something hot and sweet to drink. Copy manuscripts with Monastic Latin when Norrœnt showed up again with a vast army. Really much too big to handle. Why Norrœnt's king killed the Anglisc king and his queen took herself off to Normandy to shelter there.  

Anglisc of Wesaxon waited to see what Norrœnt had to say for herself. 

Norrœnt was older. She called herself Old Norse now as if that changed anything. She swore that she had changed. She said, "This time, I will rule you from another kingdom, but leave you linguistically alone. See what a great king I have. Just great. Cannute is king of all of Scandinavia. He will leave you alone. Except London. He hates London."  

"How nice," said Anglisc of Wesaxon.  

"Fuck you!" yelled Englisc.  

Anglisc of Wesaxon said, "Now if I understand you right, I can keep writing the books in my monasteries. That is important. I am a very literate language."  

"Yeah, Canute does not care. He is great like that," said Old Norse.  

Englisc of Wesaxon had a plan. She would keep writing. Maintain the purity of their language. She would wait and see how the wind blew. "After all, better a Germanic overlord than some than some Romance language," said Anglisc of Wesaxon.   

Northumbrian crossed her nouns. She said, "Anglisc of Wesaxon, please listen very carefully. Bless your heart(10)."    
++++ 

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English 

2 - Sisters in Old English. https://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tutor/kinterms/oldenglish.html 

3 - You may be wondering why Norrœnt and not Old Norse. Where possible, I'm avoiding calling a language Old Norse/French whatever, when it's actually still being spoken. Norrœnt is one of the names given Western Old Norse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse 

4 - Egg is from Old Norse. The Anglo-Saxon word for an egg was eye. http://blog.dictionary.com/egg-different-name/ For that matter, window is also a Norse word. English, as I am about to get into, has quite a few words derived from Norse. 

5 - Daughter in French. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/french.htm 

6 - Mother in French. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/french.htm 

7 - Sister in Old Norse. http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/language/English-Old_Norse.pdf 

8 - Anglo-Saxon for law. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=doom 

9 - Words we get from Old Norse... a few are: berserk, egg, hell, hit, knife, ransack, scare, skin, skirt, slaughter, sleight (sly too), snare, Thursday, want, weak, window, wing. Mind you some of them we get via Old Norse in the Danelaw and some from Norman French, and since the Anglo-Saxon that was written down was in the Wessex/West Saxon dialect, none of the written record wrote down the Old Norse words entering the English language until well after the Norman invasion, and Wessex stopped being in charge of the written record. So, it's complicated. wrong...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Old_Norse_origin 

10 - Wondering why I have Anglisc of Wesaxon speaking (or in this case being spoken too) with some word choices of the American South… well, there's not actually room for it later (seriously, have you looked at the word count on this beast), but from what I understand that's where that America gets that accent from. I.e. people from Wessex / Southern England settled in the southern colonies and brought their accent. As to the phrases,  "How nice," is a nice way of saying "Fuck you" and "Bless your heart," means you think the person is an idiot


	11. Above the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now this tale has not spoken much of what went on above Hadrian's wall.

Now this tale has not spoken much of what went on above Hadrian's wall. Nor even that not long after Latin left Britannia, the locals took up residence in many of the towers along the wall. When they did not take the stones for their own buildings. There was Scottish Gaelic, who cast the rest of her family from the house until she was the only one. There could be only one Celtic.

She got on well with Monastic Latin. 

Monastic Latin was very friendly. Also, she had a long relationship with Geodelic. 

There was another language living north of that wall. 

Scots had two mithers(1). She lived with Northumbrian until Norrœnt came. 

Northumbrian sent her to live with her other mither, Scots Gaelic. No' either were safe from Norrœnt. No language was. 

Scots took her blows from Norrœnt. She gave blows back too. 

She had an uneasy relationship with Scottish English. But that came later. 

Mainly, she spent a good deal of time reaving. Stealing cows, though when she said the word cow it sounded like a dove cooing. 

"How nice," said Englisc of Wesaxon when Scots paid her tribute and then stole her cattle.  
+++ 

1 - http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/general/scots.html


	12. Hasty Hastings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two armies stood opposite in the hills of Anglaland.
> 
> Technically three armies, since Anglo-Saxon had to fight Old Norse the day before.
> 
> Technically three armies, one of which was made up of three linguistic groups.
> 
> Anyway, the Battle of Hasty Hastings

Anglisc of Wesaxon wrote her words for Anglaland. She was at the writing of them when Norman went right into her kingdom with some old new king after that Old Norse king made a bone-house of himself and his son went the same way. 

This boy, this old man, this new king had been raise by Norman after the old queen ran off to Normandy. Mind, the woman married Cannute and was queen again. This boy, this old man, he should have been raised to speak Anglisc of Wesaxon. Not Norman. 

When she saw this new king, Angisc of Wesaxon said, "How nice. An Anglisc king who speaks hardly a word of Anglisc." 

"Nice place," said Norman. She looked at the wide rich tracts of land. "Very nice. I could make a home in a place like this. Move on in." 

She set up in the king's court, but Anglisc of Wesaxon and her earl made sure that this no account Norman speaking king of Anglaland did not have a lick of power. Not one bite of it. Fellow kept wanting to confess feelings. In Norman. 

It was all fine. Just fine. Anglisc of Wesaxon could see which way the boisterous-wind blew. All she must do was wait and get a proper Anglisc king. 

Old Norse sighed sadly into her beer. "Canute died. Hartha Canute was a dick to everyone. And now I will never get to slowly infect all the Scandinavian languages into one great killer language." 

"What?" asked Anglisc of Wesaxon. 

"Nothing," said Old Norse."I said not a thing. Let us speak instead of how I fucked Northumbria up." 

Anglisc of Wesaxon was over that. She wanted to talk about that last little thing that Old Norse had said. 

Northumbrian was never not going to be in no way over it. 

Anglisc of Wesaxon said, "Now do not be afraid. Wait for our time. This king will die. My Anglisc of Wesaxon earl of Wessex will become king. We will be just fine." 

"Waiting did not work for me in the past," said Northumbrian. 

Norman waved a piece of paper. "Now look at that. A promise from the old king and your earl of Wessex that I can take over England." 

"The ink is wet on that promise. My earl made no such promise to your bastard of a duke. This is my land," said Anglisc of Wesaxon. 

Down in Brittany, Breton cracked her nouns. "You country stealing language. The day of my promised return is almost at hand. I shall have my revenge." 

"Darling, that was five centuries ago," protested Anglisc of Wesaxon. 

"I am going to sing about King Arthur kicking your mamms' Germanic verbs while kicking your Germanic verbs!" shouted Breton. 

"So... Breton. May I take it that you have an interest in a piece of this here action?" asked Norman. 

"In for kicking their island stealing verbs," said Breton. "Yes." 

"Good. I will put you down for a third of the army," said Norman. "That will be only a third of the take and I will be the royal language." 

"I will hit them in the verbs," said Breton. 

Meanwhile, Franca D'Oil noticed how Catholic Latin was glaring over the channel at Monastic Latin. "You know," she said to Catholic Latin. "You help my fille(1), Norman, declare this a crusade. I will make sure that all the sermons in England are in Latin the way they should be." 

Catholic Latin handed Norman a shiny Crusade flag. "All Latin. All the time. I am done hearing all this vernacular. I am a living language with feelings." 

Norman, Bretton and Langue D'Oil boarded their boats and waited for a wind that was fair. 

Anglisc of Wesaxon waved her own flag. "The purity of our language, of Anglaland, is worth saving." She assembled an army of great warriors and earthlings to fight Norman and her army. 

Old Norse very quietly put together an army. She whispered, "I have the right to take back Inglaland. I will hit everything over there." She boarded some boats and waited for a wind that was fair. 

The boisterous wind did not blow. 

The month crawled like a caterpillar into butterfly-bloom. 

Anglisc of Wesaxon sat on the sea shore singing that Anglisc of Kentish, Anglisc of Mercian and Northumbrian would be in good spirits for battle. 

The boisterous-wind did not blow. 

The month crawled like a caterpillar into butterfly-bloom. 

It was time for crops to come. 

Anglisc of Mercian said, "We need to harvest the fields or all our speakers will starve." 

Anglisc of Wesaxon knew the truth of this tale. She let the earthlings tend to the earth. She waited with her waiting warriors on the sea shore. Writing poems on their wide-shields. Braiding their bravery there by the sea. 

The boisterous-wind picked up a fair breeze. It blustering blew from north to south. 

Old Norse flew over the fish-road. "I return!" 

Northumbrian screamed. 

"Sweoster, fail you I will not," said Anglisc of Wesaxon. She ran swift steps to Northumbrian's side. From those sandy shores, she cast Old Norse right on out into the sea. 

The boisterous-wind picked up a fair breeze. It blusterous blew from south to north. 

Norman, Breton, and Franca D'Oil sailed over the swan-road to the far shore. 

"Now that just not perfect," said Anglisc of Wesaxon. 

"Sit for a single fucking moment, sweoster. Wait a week to make new war," said Anglisc of Mercian. "Their enormous army is only as large as fuck to fight if not facing eager fucking earthings." 

"Wait," said Anglisc of Kentish. "Once the harvest is in, we will wage war with you in weight of warriors." 

"Fuck yeah!" said Englisc. "We will fuck those fuckers!" 

Anglisc of Wesaxon looked to Northumbrian, who was quiet through all this while. "I do not wait!" yelled Englisc of Wesaxon and though she was weary from her race well won, she ran to fight(2). 

There was a mighty battle of words. Swords and spears. Flightful-arrows in arching-fall. 

Anglisc of Wesaxon beat upon her linden shield. She stood upon the earth for no stirrups did her soldiers seek. She sang out the decrees written by great kings. She sang of her King Alfred of Wesaxon. Of how he had ended his wait in winning-battle. 

Before her upon the right, Langue D'Oil with many armoured chevalier on their stalwart steeds and sang of great royal Charlemagne and his great deeds. She sang of vast land in empire's sway. 

Before her upon the left, Breton with many armoured chevalier on their equal equines stood in stirrups and sang of chivalrous royal Arthur(3). She sang of his fearsom deeds battling the invaders that she now faced. She sang of how payback was a bitch, and so was she. 

Before her upon the middle, Norman with many armoured chevalier their horse in harness sat and sang of her rights for this earth. She waved the banner that she had received from Catholic Latin before.(4) 

Anglisc of Wesaxon called out, "I will face you all. I will drive you out as I drove Old Norse into the deep." 

Norman shot Anglisc of Wesaxon in the nouns. 

"Now that I think on it, I should have waited," said Anglisc of Wesaxon and fell. Wesaxon gurgled and reached forlornly for her fantastic-writing. 

Monastic Latin grumpily stopped writing in the Anglish of Wesaxon. Catholic Latin had her priests preach in good Catholic Latin. 

There was a pretty Anglisc chronicle in Peterborough, but more and more the words written were not Anglisc of Wesaxon, but … Englisc. 

One chronicle shining like a single candle against Englisc's night. 

Norman was crowned by Catholic Latin and renamed, "Anglo-Norman, ruler of England." 

Anglo-Norman sat down upon her throne. "It is good to be the roi. Or how do they say it here. Cing. I do not care what they call me as long as I rule. That Anglisc is a poxy language infected by Old Norse words." She sent some chevalier to get her royal dinner. 

They took a wrong turn in a narrow London street, and returned somewhat the worse for having lost all the nouns in their pockets to a hooded thief. 

Englisc examined its new words and ordered a skin of sack for Anglisc of Wesaxon, who said, "We cannot be Anglisc if we take on new words. We must keep our language pure. As our mōdor gave it to us." 

Englisc drank deeply of the sack. It said, "I do not think you listened when Monastic Latin talked about Gaulic. I will not survive if I do not steal words. If anything may be learned of Northumbrian's survival before Old Norse blows, it is that. Take what you can and do not reject the skin of sack when it is to you sent(5)."  
+++ 

1 – Daughter in French, which comes Latin filia. 

2 - If the wind had blown only one way, or King Harold/Earl of Wessex had waited to pull together a new army after a) disbanding his foot soldiers to deal with the harvest and b) fighting an invasion but a kinda sort heir to Cannute, we might be speaking a very different language today. Course, we could also be speaking Danish. 

3 - Sort of making that part up, but not really. A large part of the Norman army was made up of Breton knights, who were descended from the Brittonic Celts driven out of Britain by the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (and had no reason to) don't talk about King Arthur. He wasn't their heroic historical figure. King Arthur, by this odd quirk of history, is not only an interesting literary tradition, but enormously good propaganda if you look at it from the point of view of the invading Anglo-Norman/Breton army. 

4– Harness comes from a Norse word that entered into Norman French, and then into English. 

5– I suppose I could have ended this story here, but um… I wrote this story backwards to a degree. So, carry on to Middle English where we will wend with great deal less goodly alliteration.


	13. Bring on the Barristers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There came to be a need for a special class of people.
> 
> A special class of people who could speak the language of the law.
> 
> We could call them barristers.

Anglo-Norman told her mère(1), "I thought you wanted me to make something of myself. That is why you urged me to England." 

"Not at my expense," sniffed Franca D'Oil. 

Ango-Norman decided that she did not care. She ruled in Normandy and England. 

"You must listen to your māter(2) when you are in France," said Catholic Latin. "But I am your grand māter. Māter and master in this world and the next." 

Anglo-Norman sighed and turned all the governmental writing over to Catholic Latin. Law. Religion. She did reserve the right to argue court cases in Anglo-Norman. 

Since Englisc could not argue in the courts for its own defence, nor in the Catholic Latin courts, which required the use of Catholic Latin, the trade of barrister, who spoke a sort of bastard Anglo-Norman, came into being. Englisc said to Anglo-Norman, "I blame you for inventing lawyers." 

"You speak, but I do not need to understand you," said Anglo-Norman. "That is what my fitz French is for."(3) 

Anglo-Norman looked at her bastard, Marlborough French, and said, "Your pronunciation is wrong. As is your spelling." Marlborough French, or Marle as this tale could call her, said, "I am sorry, mere. I shall try to do better." Marle was not only in the courts, but in trade as well. She worked the low level offices. She was spoken by those people who moved between Englisc and Anglo-Norman, who attempted to speak both. 

Anglo-Norman wrote from her lands in Normandy. "Marle, send me a count of my chateau, bovine and mutton so I can tax Englisc." 

Catholic Latin smiled benignly and made a similar request to the people living on church lands. 

Englisc snuck into the word barrows of Anglo-Norman and Catholic Latin, and stole wheel barrels worth of words. It knew that if Englisc was to survive, unwritten, unable to defend itself in the courts, with no voice in rule, it would need words. 

Englisc said to her moder, Northumbria. "Old Norse shattered your stiff inflections. You caught words like a pox from Old Norse and gave me the really nasty words. Moder Mercia gave me all the common as fuck words. My fucking core." 

Northumbrian moved a piece forward on the checker board. "Cing me."(4) 

Englisc rifled around in the spare words it had stolen from Anglo-Norman's vault in the Exchequer the better to play checkers. "These words I am stealing from Anglo-Norman are for fancy special occasions and Latin is for fucking education." 

"As long as you present me as the fount of all knowledge," said Catholic Latin, "I do not resent your constant thefts." She opened a few colleges in the south of England. To teach people the right way to write and think in Latin. To preserve the purity of her living language, which was in no way borrowing words from Greek and Hebrew. 

Hebrew sighed and sat with Yiddish in the ghetto. Greek had her own problems with the neighbors. 

University Latin was more than happy to take words. "I am never going to graduate." She lit a medicinal. "Also, I am not going to tell Catholic Latin that she is not as pure as she thinks."(5) 

Anglisc of Wesaxon clutched an empty sleeve where her writing used to flex. "Once we were a language of literature. Of law. Of power." 

Englisc said, "Fuck yes!" It went into the royal forests and robbed the fuck out of Anglo-Norman and Catholic Latin whenever they sent some knights or priests wandering in the woods. It did the same in the alleys of London, but most of those were words were focused on assault and battery.(6) 

Northumbrian sighed. She went to Anglisc of Wesaxon to discuss the taxes and Englisc. 

While she was there, she became hungry and asked from some eggs to eat. Anglisc of Wesaxon said, "I have no idea what you are talking about. Please, leave. I do not know you." 

"I can no longer understand you," said Northumbria. "Syster(7). I do not understand you at all. I have been aged before my time into a different language." 

"You are not speaking Anglisc," said Anglisc of Wessex. "I know that." 

"I can understand her," said Englisc. "You are both my moders." 

Anglisc of Mercian was struck by a horrible thought. "Without writing and with little right to travel to visit each other, we will soon no longer be systers. We will need Englisc as a barrister to communicate between us." 

Once this was translated, Anglian of Wesaxon said, "We are so…" she looked around, "fucked." Smiled a grim smile. "Excuse my French." 

Englisc did not laugh. It knew the seriousness of the situation. "Have no fear. I will be thine barrister. I will steal all the words that I can."(8) 

+++ 

1 – Mother in French. It's deliberate on my part to have Marle drop the accent aigu. 

2 – Mother in Latin. 

3 - Vernacular and somewhat bastardized French as spoken by the mid-tier government/nobility in England. Think knights out in the countryside surrounded by various types of English speakers. Like West Saxon being shortened to Wesaxon, I'm calling her Marle for some attempt (too late) of brevity. https://books.google.com/books?id=8TwxLo5WsYkC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=marlborough+french+middle+ages+anglo+norman&source=bl&ots=Awb8p17M9B&sig=qkGq4Xjo59-zmGwWJao8u3qxwCQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO68r_qPHQAhVojVQKHSd9DkYQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=marlborough%20french%20middle%20ages%20anglo%20norman&f=false 

4 – The Exchequer, medieval tax office, used a check pattern table to count money. Thus the name. Seems to be some disagreement when the office of Exchequer started in England, but check pattern was picked up by French from Persian in the 11th century and then into English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_(pattern) 

5 – When Catholic - well I couldn't call her Medieval Latin for reasons - says she is a living language, that's true. She was picking up all sorts of words and syntax. Influences that then were carried around, used in different countries and found their way into various local vocabularies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Latin 

http://www.brighthubeducation.com/learning-translating-latin/17775-brief-history-of-medieval-latin/ 

6 – This will come up again in the next chapter, but many of our legal terms, like assault, battery, murder, bigamy, etc. come from French. This makes sense what with French being the language of law/power/etc. Court cases in England were argued in bastardized French up until the 1700s. 

7 – Sister in Old Norse. At this time as Anglo-Saxon speakers stopped being able to move around, divisions increased with only people in the middle / urban areas able to understand the rest. There's a contemporary joke I was trying to find the reference to about a merchant from York who is visiting the south, gets hungry and tries to buy some eggs, but no one understood because Anglo. Saxon for egg was eye. But sadly my Google foo failed. Edited to say, but readers like you had the answer http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126611.html. 

8 - At this point, English picked up the habit from French of making the plural form You as the formal form and used it for Plural and Singular. While keeping the singular form as the intimate form, "Thee, thine, etc." You became more and more common as people wanted to avoid insulting their overlords. 


	14. Chansons D'Amour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Franca D'Oil wanted Franca D'Oc to read her poems of great deeds.
> 
> Franca D'Oc was occupied with other concerns.

When her fille conquered England, Franca D'Oil thought to herself, "Anglisc of Wesaxon wrote in her own language. I have conquered her through my fille. Why should I not do what the one I conquered was able to do? Her literature can be nothing in comparison to my own, who had Charlemagne as royalty."  

Poets caught her mood, tuned as they were to her melody. They wrote songs of chevalier who strove to great deeds for love of their royal lord.  

She sent a Song of Great Deeds to Franca D'Oc in the south. "Read this poem. See how vigorous my poets are. How brave my chevalier. This poem is about how I saved you from Arabic."(1) 

Franca D'Oc was from home when the poem arrived.(2) She was in northern Spain visiting Arabic for a bath in the barraa of al-yaasmiin, for that barrio was well covered with blooming jasmine of the night.(3) Arabic read to her poetry there in the bath with the scent of flowers flirting with the heated air.  

Franca D'Oc took home the word barri for neighbourhood and a fond memory of jasmine. Well fed too. Apricots, rice, artichokes, and oddly enough alcohol. Still further, she had caught from Arabic a sweet poetic urge.   

Her poets in line with her thoughts wrote a bawdy poem of all she had enjoyed with Arabic. She sent Franca D'Oil a copy and this letter. "My apology that I have not had time to read your poem, but have this poem in return so that you may see that I have well spent my time."  

Franca D'Oil was not to be deterred. Her poets wrote songs of great deeds. Of chevalier who strove to pierce themselves like pure doves on the thorns of their love for their mighty lords.  

She sent a Song of Great Deeds to Franca D'Oc in the south. "Read this poem. See how vigorous my poets are. How brave my chevalier. This poem is about how I saved you from Latin."  

Franca D'Oc was from home when the poem arrived. She was had been traveling through the Italian peninsula when she chanced upon Tuscan Italian who was sharing a well smoked meal of meats with her sorella(4), Neapolitan Italian.   

Now Franca D'Oc pretended to these sòrre(5) that she was a language without words and also no writing. She pretended that no word of what occurred during her visit could be recorded.   

Tuscan said to Neopolitan, "Sorella, here is the language we have been seeking so that we may enjoy such pleasures as Latin once described in her mosaics and frescos, but for which we do not wish to be chided by Catholic Latin, who is to Latin like a bitter bird. Always singing a sad song about her purity, all the while stealing bright words and shitting on any who sits beneath."   

Neopolitian was not as assured. "Sorella, let us test this language to be sure that she has no words. I do not desire Catholic Latin's chides." They scratched words on Franca D'Oc with a pen a hundred times. But she did not speak nor grab the pen from them. She had vowed to herself to obscure the truth.  

Finally, Neopolitan was convinced. "Sorella, this is the one we've been seeking. Come, let us no longer restrain from our pleasures."  

Dipthongs were put aside to hang upon the branches in the sweetly scented garden where they played. When in their bedchamber, nouns were well oiled with perfume until even their adjectives dripped with it. Nor were verbs neglected. Neopolitan was heard to vocalize as Franca D'Oc applied pleasing palletisation.   

Well they enjoyed themselves until all words were exhausted.  

Finally much perfumed with what had occurred, Franca D'Oc went home with the word perfume.(6)   

There she was struck by a lusty poetic urge. Poets in tune with her desire wrote of what had occurred. In great detail, they described tongues in the backs of mouths. In great detail, they described teeth firm against a lower lip to voiceless fricatives cries. With much midnight words coiled upon the illuminated vellum, they described the three way aspirations of an aspirated obstruent with some glottal constriction. Ever tenser until the final unstress of release.  

As she had not had time to read Franca D'Oil's poem, she sent Franca D'Oil a copy of her own poem and this letter. "My apology that I have not had time to read your poem, but have this poem so that you may see that I have well spent my time."  

She also sent a copy to the sòrre and begged that for love of her that they burn the pen with which they had scratched her.(7) 

Franca D'Oil was not to be deterred. Her poets wrote songs of great deeds. Of perfect chevalier who gave themselves in perfect service on the field of battle for their love for their sovereign masters.  

She sent a Song of Great Deeds to Franca D'Oc in the south. "Read this poem. See how vigorous my poets are. How brave my chevalier. It is about how I saved you from Germanic."  

Franca D'Oc was at home when the poem arrived. She had recently returned from sneaking into the bedchamber of Catalan from which room she had kidnapped that language with Catalan's assistance. Catalan had slipped Sardinian a draught such that she slept while Catalan left to enjoy a time in Franca D'Oc's bedchamber.   

Thus Franca D'Oc was so much at home that she and Catalan did not leave her bedchamber for some days.   

When they emerged, Franca D'Oc was moved by the urge to filthy poetry. For Catalan much enjoyed poems about love in the roundabout way.  

As she had not had time to read Franca D'Oil's poem, she sent Franca D'Oil a copy of her own poem and this letter. "My apology that I have not had time to read your poem, but have this poem so that you may see that I have well spent my time."  

In response, Franca D'Oil invited Franca D'Oc to her court.   

Franca D'Oc went to visit Franca D'Oc and asked the way to Franca D'Oil's bedchamber.   

Franca D'Oil said, "Yes, for your own protection you should sleep in my very chamber."  

Franca D'Oc removed her dipthong and lay down on Franca D'Oil's bed. "Whatever excuse you must to yourself give, is no hardship to me."  

As her poets slid skilful fingers along the strings of their lutes, the poets of Franca D'Oil found their inspiration shifting. They still longed for the tales of chivalrous chevalier, but now they sought glory in the service of a lady and for her love.  

Catholic Latin read the poetry, spilled ink at the corner of the page, and hastily arranged the marriage of Franca D'Oc to Franca D'Oil.  

Franca D'Oc said, "I do not believe you read my poetry if you believe marriage is an impediement to my affections. Then again, until I arrived, I was convinced that Franca D'Oil only wrote fiction about the love of two men. Not that this was of any distress. In fact…"   

The poets of Franca D'Oc, ever turned to her desire, slid skilful fingers upon strings to include the homoerotic adventures that Franca D'Oc was craving in her poetry.    
+++ 

1 - Or Chanson de Geste, of which The Song of Roland is an example. 

2 - Okay, so I'm combining two things here for Franca D'Oc. Both some of the other linguistic influences on the Occitan languages and Guillem IX of Aquitaine (Eleanor's Grandfather), who kicked off a lot of the later love poetry by writing poems about his sexual encounters. Seriously. The detail in these things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IX,_Duke_of_Aquitaine 

3 -   It kind of spells it out, but barrio in Spanish and barri in Occitain come from Arabic baaraa. Also, some of the other agricultural words listed. If admittedly, in their English variation. Spanish has (understandably) quite a few loan words from Arabic, which in turn come to English in a number of ways. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_the_Spanish_language 

 http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/arabicspanish.htm 

4 - Sister in Italian. 

5 - Sister in Occitan/Langue D'Oc. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/occitan.htm 

6 - http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=perfume 

7 - In the actual poem, Guillem of Aquitaine is scratched by a cat. Stays mute. Has a good time with the sisters. http://www.midi-france.info/190401_guilhem.htm 

http://williamofaquitaine.blogspot.com/2014/08/william-of-aquitaine-chapter-two-red-cat.html 

 


	15. The Adventures of Robin Hood Versus the Knight and the Cart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Franca D'Oc made her way to England, which was home to many gracious tales of knights.
> 
> Also, bandit Languages living in the woods.

In the court of Franca D'Oil, Anglo-Norman found herself farther and farther from the favour of her mère(1), Franca Droid, through no fault of her own. 

No gifts did Franca D'Oil give her. No signs of favour. She did not praise her new words or grammatical shifts. Far from it. All Franca D'Oil had to say of Anglo-Norman was, "Your spelling is not as it should be." Once even she said, "Your grammar is insular and does not follow the continental pattern." 

Now as it happened at that time Franca D'Oil was married to Franca D'Oc. 

All who hear this tale should know that Franca D'Oc was well accounted by all who saw her. Her grammar was of high refinement. Her rhymes were smooth and flowed as a stream from the lavender hills. She was known to all as a language spoken in a land of great wealth and over rich tracts of land. She had a great variety of words for rich colours: vermilion, turquoise, lilac, scarlet and cerise.(2) She had many rich words for fine fabrics. Velvet and velour. Sturdy fabric de Nimes too. Even more so, she was the source of many words on the subject of liaisons between a noble chevalier and their lady. 

Long had the subject of amorous pursuits fallen from literature. Not since the poet of love had written his sweet verses on Love's Art, and was for it exiled for it from Latin to Classical Greek, had these soft sighed pursuits found their way into sweet new rhyme. Not since the lady of Lesbos wrote of entangled liaisons had such verses found such a high metier as Franca D'Oc brought to glory with her well quilled tongue.(3) 

But in this moment, we cannot speak of amour between the wedded two. Franca D'Oil and Franca D'Oc had just returned from crusading and caravanning in the Holy Lands where all had not gone to the couples' desiring. 

Franca D'Oil said, "Franca D'Oc says her affair with Arabic ended long ago. But I know what she was doing when claimed to be hazarding at dice with Arabic. I know what she was at when she claimed merely to playing chess with Farsi. Now she has infected me with their words. She should be guided by my grammar, and by Catholic Latin too."(4) 

Franca D'Oc's poets broke their strings. 

Franca D'Oil's poets put down their quills. 

"Monk of a language," Franca D'Oc said. "I went with you to Levant where if you had listened to me perhaps we would be well spoken of there, certainly well mated. But no… I married a priest not a language. It is clear that there will never be a daughter of this blending." 

Catholic Latin quietly annulled the marriage having found that they were soeur(5) languages and thus too closely related to be married. This left Franca D'Oc no longer a queen of languages, but still the speech of rich and wealthy lands. 

Anglo-Norman stirred to see such a gracious language without protection. So many noble words for colour. The number of adjectives for perfume alone. 

They were married in a simple wedding after only a brief conversation. Franca D'Oc was not one to wait. Nor either Anglo-Norman.(6) 

Franca D'Oc arrived in England. She looked at the castles and knights. She spoke with Breton, who said, "King Arthur once lived here." 

Franca D'Oc bent sweetly to the sound of that poetic meter. 

Breton said, "He was a king greater surely than any Charlemagne. For we do not have a name for Charlemagne's Queen. I say a King too small for a great Queen is too small for greatness in any language." 

All the Celtic family quite agreed. 

Franca D'Oc saw the truth of what they said. 

For her honour, Anglo-Norman had a poet write sweet lays. Words gathered from the common folk and also too from the Celtic. 

The courtyards of England, and so too in France for the lands of this couple were diverse and vast, rang with these sweet songs. With songs of King Arthur and his rounded table. Of the Queen Guinevere and of the Knight of the Cart.(7) 

These songs were not heard by the people of England. They did not know them. Arthur was foreign to them. 

Now one night, Englisc crept into the castle to steal some words. It came by quite accident upon the room where Franca D'Oc was quite bare in her bathing chamber. Perfume and steam curled upon itself in the air like a dragon of old. 

Franca D'Oc said, "Varlet, if you had any courtesy, you would hand me that robe." She pointed to a rich robe of scarlet velvet." 

"I do not know the meaning of courtesy," said Englisc. The varlet truly did not. Nor yet of velvet. 

Franca D'Oc lightly splashed sweetly scented adverbs. "Villain, have you come to seize the word passion then?" She got up out of the bath and dried herself at her leisure. "Attraction. Desire. Romance. No, I can see you lack the courtesy to understand me."(8) 

Englisc well understood the word seize for Anglo-Norman was the suzerain of the land and often seized monies and lands. But the rest were words that were not spoken. 

Englisc said, "Fuck, I have got to seize more words." But as it came close to Franca D'Oc, Englisc found that Franca D'Oc had tightly bound up her words in thorny poetic verse and they could not be stolen. "Fuck!" Englisc sucked on a bleeding noun. "There are rhymes at the end of every line. What kind of fucking language can do that?" 

"A well rhymed tongue," said Franca D'Oc, who pressed a lingual kiss upon Englisc. She said, "Villain, I freely give you the word chivalry. And by the use of it, you may earn the others." She roundly slapped it. "Your reward for coming upon me uninvited." 

Englisc held a noun to its stinging grammar. Englisc was filled with desire. Here was a wealthy language with many words of power and prestige. Written words that controlled the law. 

Englisc was poor and unwritten. The last chronicle in Peterborough had stopped recording Englisc two score years ago and five. The love of such a lady could greatly enrich Englisc in words and honor. Her love might even grant the scribes that would return Englisc to writing. Accord Englisc honor. (9) 

Franca D'Oc, secure in her wealth and position as a queen of languages, left Englisc there. 

Englisc went into Sherwood Forest where its merry band of thieves lived. 

It went to the fireside of Marle, who walked with Englisc as often as she begged Anglo-Norman to forgive her rough words at court. Now when that language walked with Englisc, she dressed in scarlet, a word she had offered Englisc freely. In return, it had given her the word love for their friendship. A word Marle had taken gladly. For all that Englisc's use of the word was not as Marle meant it. Kings love power. Knights love war. Marle loved the way Englisc saw her, full of mannered grace, and no rough spelling.(10) 

To Marle's dismay that evening, Englisc held out a poem by firelight, but it was not written in Marle's praise. Oh, how in her core words, Marle wished that poem had fallen into the fire. But Englisc begged of Marle her help, and so she could not simply let it fall to ash. 

Marle sighed as she read the words. "It is about King Arthur and the knights of the round table." 

"Never heard of the fucker," said Englisc. 

Marle would have replied, when Englisc stopped her. In the distance, Anglo-Norman was clattering down the forest road with her knights. 

Englisc whistled for Little Cornwall and Friar's Latin that they might waylay Anglo-Norman with bows of good Englisc oak. Marle went too and held her bow high for her love of Englisc. Though concealed her nouns from her mere with a mantel of scarlet. 

As Englisc and its merry band were excellent shots with the bow, and the dense forest gave no advantage to mounted knights, having threatened Anglo-Norman with piercing, they took from her what spare nouns and verbs that she carried. They made away into the protection of the vast wilderness of Sherwood Forest.(11) 

Alas, for their troubles, they got the words they always got. "Why do we always end up stealing assault and battery when we rob Anglo-Norman in the forest?" 

"There was that time we got murder," said Little Cornwall. 

"Bigamy," said Friar's Latin. 

"When did we get bigamy?" asked Little Cornwall, who looked at Cymraeg Gaelic, who looked blank as well. 

Scots aspirated. Old Norse coughed a rattling old laugh, wrapped up as she was by the fire, and nudged Scottish Gaelic. 

Friar's Latin looked pious and hummed a wordless Gregorian chant. 

Merle was in no mood for bigamy. She answered Englisc's question more simply. "These words come from the Chancery and Exchequer. From Common Law. My mere has given me many legal words." 

Englisc held up the words assault and battery. "I will never win Franca D'Oc away from Anglo-Norman with words like these." 

Marle could not then resist as her grammar coiled as jealous as an asp. "The way I hear it, all you need to win Franca D'Oc is…" 

Friar's Latin shushed what rude words were sure to come. 

"I will write a song," said Englisc, who had not noticed this exchange. 

Marle struck a sour note upon her lute. 

"Fuck!" said Englisc, who was then reminded of a certain truth. It was unwritten. "Anglo-Norman has taken my writing, my last chronicle has gone dark, but I still have words. I will compose a song. Some new folklore about a thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor." Englisc nodded vigorous adverbs. "That is sure to win Franca D'Oc."(12) 

Marle sighed for she did not see how such a song could fail to win a language over. Surely the word love that Englic had given her beat to the rhythm of the song that it sang by the light of Marle's fireside. 

The next day, Englisc returned to the castle and crept into the bower of Franca D'Oc, into her very court, where she was enjoying oranges, which she had brought from Arabic and well cloven with cloves. So great was she in sophistication, she was bare of the dipthong that Vulgar Latin had worn. Her vowels open to the warm air. She listened to him and with some translation said, "I gave you a poem about Lancelot and Guinevere. You give me a song with no amour and nothing amorous in it." 

Englisc sighed, but was much encouraged when Franca D'Oc pulled it down to sit with her upon her sofa of rich turquoise. She pointed to pictures in an illuminated book of hours that she had in her possession. It learned of chivalry. Of other nouns and verbs there in Franca D'Oc's bower. It pleased Franca D'Oc to demonstrate amour and what it was to be amorous. Franca D'Oc gave Englisc the word cherish. It coiled as a ribbon might around Englisc's nouns. 

But Englisc left the castle without Franca D'Oc at its side. With only a poem about Tristan and Iseult that it could not read. 

Oh, how the word love that Englisc had given Marle burned as she saw this word. This poem. She would have given Englisc the word cherish, if it had but asked. 

Englisc said to its merry band. "I am going to compose a song about Robin of the Hood and his love for Maid Marion." 

Marle struck up a sour note. "Franca D'Oc is no maiden." 

"Maid means young woman." Englisc waggled some adverbs. "They will go maying around a big may pole in my song." 

Friar's Latin said, "I am sure this has nothing to do with paganism." 

"It is about a fucking hero with a great big fucking pole that is thrust into the fucking earth," said Englisc. 

"That sounds wholesome enough," said Friar's Latin. 

Little Cornwall laughed, but would not say why. 

Marle said, "We could practice this song about a maypole. It is springtime here in the woods." 

Englisc thought this was a good idea. After Englisc composed folk traditions about Robin of the green hood and his lady, Marion, and their dancing around the may pole, it practiced the dance with Marle there in the woods. 

But oh, how the word love that Marle had of Englisc ached to see it creep off to the chateau of Franca D'Oc. 

Englisc crept into Franca D'Ocs very bed chamber. It knew that Anglo-Norman was from the castle at that time. She was at war with Scots. 

Franca D'Oc greeted Englisc and said, "It is well, you have added a lady to your songs. Already, I see that your affection for me is transforming you into a more courteous tongue." 

Englisc was glad to receive the word affection. This and others did Franca D'Oc affect upon Englisc. While Franca D'Oc was the object of Englisc's subjective gaze. 

But when it left the castle, it was alone. Armed only with a poem about some knight and a lion that it could not read. 

Friar's Latin said, "That sounds like a story Classical Greek once told Latin." 

"But with more liaisons," said Marle, who played a sour beat upon her lute. 

"Where are your merry notes?" asked Englisc. "All this spring and now into summer, your lute has been unstrung." 

"Perhaps you should ask your lady," said Marle, who that moment put aside scarlet. She left behind the word love. Threw it in the fire and went back to her labours accounting in the courts for Anglo-Norman. 

Englsc did not understand what had happened. It picked love out of the fire and brushed off the ash. 

In distraction, it robbed some travellers down the road. 

Abbots and Archbishops. Knights and merchants. Obtained many words about assault and battery. 

Englisc went to Franca D'Oc, but Englisc was full of sighs and was distracted. 

Franca D'Oc said, "I well know the meaning of such bellows. It is a grammar that is hard at work upon amour, but I think, not upon this courtyard." 

Englisc almost protested, but then thought the better of it. "It is my dear friend Marle. She has left our camp in the woods and set aside her scarlet mantle. She even left behind the word I gave her." 

"What word was that?" asked Franca D'Oc. 

"Love," said Englisc. 

Franca D'Oc rolled up her poetry and hit Englisc with it upon the adjectives. 

"Why do you do that?" protested Englisc. 

"I gave you poems of brave Lancelot. Of sacred grails. Quests. I gave you many words. Cherish. Affection. Attraction. Desire. Romance. Passion. Amorous. I have been well satisfied with your understanding of courtesy." She struck Englisc again with the poem. "Until this moment." She left the courtyard.(12) 

"But what of writing?" asked Englisc. The butterfly upon the rose did not answer. Nor did the rose. But sitting there in the drowsy heat, Englisc thought about all the words Marle had given it. Of all the care. Of all the assistance. Of the word love. 

Englisc set off to the counting houses of the merchants to see if Marle would agree to a Sherwood bower. If she would agree to change the meaning of the word love to be of a more amorous nature. 

Her agreement was no subtle sign, but a shout. 

They blended well. 

That they were blessed with a child in no short time may be of no surprise. 

The contractions came quickly and easily to Englisc. I'll. I'd. Let's. Don't. Can't. Ain't. Aren't. (13) 

Until finally, Middle English squalled into the world. 

"Beautiful," said Marle. 

"That's because it has so many of your nouns," agreed Englisc. 

Marle could give no better reply than a sweet melody on her lute.  
+++++ 

1 – Mother in French. 

2- Okay, technically those colors are words of purely French origin, not purely Provençal/Occitan. 

However, Velvet, velour and perfume are – at least according the History of English Podcast – of Aquitanian origin. http://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2016/07/15/episode-81-love-songs-and-troubadours/ 

We get denim, the fabric de (from) Nimes, quite a bit later. 

3- Ovid was the Latin poet. Sappho was from Lesbos. Yes, I'm being a bit hyperbolic here. But it is true that romantic poetry had been a bit lacking. 

4 - Ah, nothing like looking through a list of words while searching for the word crusade and 11th. Necessary since French gets Arabic words from more than one source. However, caravan, chess and related words, and hazard were picked up during the 1100s from Arabic.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin_(A-B) 

5- Sister in French. 

6 - Marry and marriage are words of French origin. Wed and wedding are of Anglo-Saxon. BTW – old words starting with w are probably Germanic. Old words starting with v are probably of French origin, because there was a shift from v to w in Late Latin. Wine versus Vin (or Vino in Italian). New words... hazard the dice and you takes your chances as to where it came from. 

7- Marie de France, who wrote in the Anglo-Norman, for the English court. Chretien de Troyes wrote about the Knight of the Cart, aka Lancelot. He wrote some of the early full on King Arthur, court of Camelot, fiction. These were stories of the aristocracy. The average folk were more focused on the developing folk tales around Robin Hood. 

8 – All these words to do with love from French. 

9- Okay, that bit in Monty Python's Holy Grail where they talk about vast tracts of land, that's funny because in Medieval Romantic literature, the poets will often go on about all the rich fabric, lands, plateware, etc. that the lady has as much as how personally attractive she was. There's a different focus in the romance on how love of a lady improves a knight. But let's just say, loving a wealthy lady got a lot of play. 

10 - Love is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin, but originally it was a more generic strong liking and didn't refer to romantic love. Knights love war. Merchants love money. That sort of thing. 

11 - Vast and wilderness are cognates. Vast from French and wilderness from Germanic. 

12 – As previous, all the romantic words listed are from French. Also the court in court yard. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/courtyard 

13 – Old English had contractions, but it was more "Word+word=contracted into one word" and not word't. Anyway, contractions work with childbirth. So they go here. It's also (if I'm understanding this correctly) partially French influence with "Ne pas" to indicate negation. So, there was multiple negative English and we picked up word phrases like "am not", "can not" and "will not", which became ain't, can't, and won't. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_auxiliaries_and_contractions 

http://historicallyirrelevant.com/post/3505130893/the-history-of-contractions


	16. Fixing Spelling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middle English was going to fix spelling.
> 
> What was most important is that English spelling be made consistent with its romantic heritage.

"What you doing?" asked Englisc, who was now known as Old Englisc, now that she was a mōdor(1) to Middle English. 

"Writing," said Middle English. 

Old Englisc felt a swell of pride. Once more a member of her family would be a written language. Her own child was literate. 

Middle English said, "I'm using all these new words. Grandmoder(2) Old Norse's words like skull and knife." It pointed. "Moder(3) Marle's words like fruit, oil, juggler." (4) 

Old Englisc leaned closer. "What's that?" 

"Huckster."(5) 

"That's not Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman or Old Norse," said Old Englisc. 

"Oh, when Dutch was visiting last week, I um… hit her on the skull and took it." 

Old Englisc nodded proudly. "I used to do that to Anglo-Norman when she rode through my forests or walked in my London." It looked again. "But why are the words spelled so strangely?" 

Middle English said, "I'm fixing your spelling." 

"There's nothing wrong with my spelling." Old Englisc looked at Marle. (6) 

Marle sighed. "It's the runes, my love." 

"What's wrong with the runes?" asked Old Englisc. 

"What's not wrong with them?" said Middle English. "We have to get rid of them. No one uses runes. Ash is unnecessary. I've already merged æ with A. Eth and Thorn are redundant, and we're getting rid of both. We don't need Wynn, we'll use U for U like you're supposed to. Double it up when we need to indicate a DoubleU sound." 

"You mean like Franca D'Oil," muttered Old Englisc. 

"She told my mere that she wants to be called Française now," said Marle. "Ever since she and Franca D'Oc divorced." Marle was secure in Old Englisc's love. "D'Oc changed her name to Occitan and our child's great grand-mere changed her name as well." 

"She's not great and she's not grand," muttered Englisc. But it wasn't going to be distracted. "Our elder mōdor added Thorn to writing. We had writing before Franca D'Oc or Francaise, or whatever she wants to call herself. You'll take the rune for Thorn from me when you pry it from my cold dead consonants. I mean… Thorn. None of the other letters are that fierce. A. B. C. Thorn." 

"But… fine," said Middle English, "You can keep Thorn at least until there's some form of moveable typeface printing press, which will most likely be made on the Continent and won't have Thorn, because no one uses runes." 

"Good," said Old Englisc clutching its Thorn. Certain that such a thing would never happen and it would never be parted from Thorn. "What are you doing with Yogh? We got that from Monastic Latin. That should be fine." 

"Moder, no one uses Yogh. It's not even a thing. We'll use g for the g and j sounds like normal languages." 

Old Englisc sighed. 

Middle English pressed an adjective on her moder's nouns. "Moder, don't look like that. It'll be fine. I hear on the Continent they're experimenting with a new letter. J. It looks like I, but with a fancy tail. Just the kind of thing you'd like."(7) 

"A new letter," said Englisc. 

"Eventually. It may take a few hundred years. These things can't be rushed. But we'll need it for all those J sounds I'm adding from moder Marle." Middle English tapped her quill. "Although, it's probably not that important that I be super consistent about where I use it. Sometimes I'll use a G for the J sound like giant generals from French, and sometimes I'll use a J like in juggler. You know, once the J is released out of beta testing on the Continent." 

"But… what about words that have a hard G like gout or girl?" 

"It's not important to my artistic vision," said Middle English. "I'm fixing things." 

"Inconsistently," said Old Englisc. 

Marle sighed. "I can tell you from experience that your grandmere Anglo-Norman will criticize your fixes either way." 

Englisc frowned. "Don't tell Wesaxon that you're just," it waved at the page. It paused. "What about words like ghost?" 

"Oh, I'm going to use h after the g. To indicate that there's an aspiration. That's… um… well, I'll use thorn sometimes, but I was actually thinking of using a th for the thorn sound." 

Old Englisc twitched verbally. 

Marle chimed in. "Love, it would make me happy to use an h. My mere told me that Latin used to add an h when adding aspirated consonants from Greek that she didn't have. She added an H to let everyone know they were there. Lovely words like philosophy and chemistry." 

Middle English said, "If it was good enough for Latin, it's good enough for me." She pointed at the ending of her own name. "That's why I end in –sh. It's the same sound you have, I just spell it better." She added H. "Oh, and what's with all the aspiration in front of everything. It's lord, not hlord. It should be 'what' not this 'h(ash)at' monstrosity." 

"What? Why? I… I still think we should get to keep the runes," said Old English. 

"No, moder. It's wrong." 

Old Englisc looked crafty. "So, what about spelling something like a house is safe as houses." 

"What about it?" asked Middle English. 

"You're not going to be putting one of those Zs in there are you? Housez?" 

"God's Teeth, no! That would be stupid!" 

"Good," said Old Englisc somewhat mollified. "What about when the king's chrome cat circles church?" 

"What about it?" said Middle English. "They all start with c. Because that is how they are supposed to be spelled." 

"Because Française says so," sighed Old Englisc. 

"Yes. Well, except the first one. That's an Anglo-Saxon word. University Latin suggested that I could sometimes use K for the K sound, which is used in Greek. Using Kappa will be this amazing homage." 

"I've never understood why you don't pronounce the H in homage," said Old Englisc. 

"I know, my love." Marle patted Old Englisc's nouns. "We lost the H that Latin gave us long ago. While our child gets the soft c from me," said Marle. 

"And I love your soft c," said Old Englisc. "But it sounds just it should be spelled with an S. If we're fixing spelling, shouldn't we change all the words like circle that have a soft C and spell it sircle. Then we could keep C and not have to add K." 

"Uh, that's not how Française spells it. It's supposed to be a C. It'll be obvious that it should be an S sound because it's from Française ." 

"For fuck's sake!" said Old Englisc. "Couldn't you just change it?" 

Marle leaned closer to Old Englisc. "But my love, as you love my soft C, I love the way you aspirate your Cs in front of some vowels. Ch-ch-ch…changes. It's lovely. She tickled Old Englisc's consonants. "The way you do that and then sometimes you use a hard C. Cat when talking about my..." She blushed and cleared her adverbs. 

Old Englisc gave her an affectionate dental labial peck. "Fine, but does this mean I have to love pronouncing chrome with a hard C. If its aspirated, we should give it aspirations." 

"Latin didn't like the aspirations," said Marle. "That's why it's still a hard C and not," she breathed heavily, "like in Greek." 

Old Englisc laughed, "Sweetword, that is not how you aspirate H, but I love that you tried." It sighed. "Middle English, I really think if you're going to the trouble of moving everything around, you should be consistent. How about we replace C everywhere with K if that's what needs to happen." 

"Moder, you don't understand. That wouldn't be true to the artistic character of our language. If it's a Française word, then it can't be changed. Also, there are words where we have to use Qu there. It's artistically true to the beautiful mosaic of our language." 

"We're a lot of fucking things, but we are not fucking artistic," said Old Englisc. 

Marle pressed a labial dental kiss to Old Englisc's nouns. "Love, be nice. Middle English is trying to help." 

"Fine," said Old Englisc, who was feeling crustier by the minute. "I hope you someday have a child just like you." 

Middle English consulted with a University Latin. "What do you think about keeping the E in words like peaceable and traceable. To let people know that the C is an S. But dropping the E in words like Lovable when you don't need it." 

Old Englisc whispered to Marle, "Let's leave Middle English to play with the spelling. While we… practice orally." 

"Oh, I," Marle blushed. "I'd like that." 

They left Middle English to fix spelling with Monastic Latin while they did other things. 

+++ 

1 - Mother in Old English. 

2 - Mother in Middle English. Huzzah, we're getting close to English. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mother 

3 - Dutch word. First appears in the Ormulum, which is just a cool sounding book, written in early Middle English. After basically a generation of no written English. 

4 - Rather than have a great many footnotes, let's just say that the conversation is as read, and that there were a lot of changes in the Middle English period to spelling as French trained scribes looked at Anglo-Saxon runes and Yogh, and went... "No, no, no," and changed things to be more like French. So French words were kept the way they were spelled and many Anglo-Saxon words like King were "fixed." This, the lack of J, which was the last letter to enter the alphabet, holdover spelling conventions from Latin, and that long standing Etruscan C/K/Q confusion resulted in many of the shall we say inconsistent spelling conventions of English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English#Orthography


	17. A Proper Villain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anglo-Norman decided that perhaps the answer to her French problem was to take over Ireland and Wales.
> 
> Irish Gaelic & Cymraeg disagreed. Cymraeg did not want to be called foreigner in her own county.
> 
> Meanwhile, Middle English was establishing herself.

Anglo-Norman grew bitter after Franca D'Oc, Occitan, returned to her lands over a silly argument. 

More bitter still when her mere, who wished to be called Française, contested her lands in France. Who contested her every move. Who mocked her when she went to visit. "My mere(1) doesn't want me to have anything. Fine, I'll take over Ireland." 

Irish Gaelic said, "I don' care if yer muither(2) does na love ya. I survived Norrœnt burnin' down me monasteries. I'll no put up with a pullin' language like yerself comin' ta my shores and messin' up the hills." 

Anglo-Norman said, "We have knights. They're like tanks… if those existed yet." 

Once she controlled large sections of Ireland, it seemed to Anglo-Norman that it would be much easier to get back and forth to Ireland if she had Wales too. Also, it would complete the set. 

Cymraeg Gaelic said, "Stop calling me foreigner. That's not even an Anglo-Norman word. Anyway, I was here first. Breton, talk to her." 

She doesn't listen to me," said Breton. 

Anglo-Norman attacked Cymraeg Gaelic. 

Things were going well for Anglo-Norman. 

Really well. She was even making headway in France. 

She developed complications of the Plantagenet kind. 

Black plague swept through everywhere, but mostly cities. 

Anglo-Norman threw words at the Black Plague. 

Black Plague enigmatically said something about mousetraps and wiped out most of the Anglo-Norman settlements in Ireland. Certainly, Anglo-Norman no longer controlled much beyond the pale of Dublin.(3) 

Irish Gaelic said, "That was a wee bit o'fortune in the black. Luck a the Irish n' all that. I should get all me kingdoms workin' together to kick these invading bastards out o’Dublin and keep 'em out." Irish Gaelic decided to have a wee dram first and got into a dialectic brawl at the party. 

Cymraeg said, "I should take this as an opportunity to become a free kingdom." There was an unfortunate dialectic brawl over the height of mountains. 

Anglo-Norman said, "Keep it down. My mere and I are having a disagreement." 

Middle English went for a stroll in the countryside. Chatted with Moder Marle's speakers. It assembled some writers and put on a traveling show that demonstrated how Middle English had taken on words from a number of languages. It did not focus on how many words had been lost. Replaced by words from French. 

No, this was a positive and hopeful show. There was a presentation on King Arthur, which was enormously successful. Really a central work on a fundamentally English heroic figure. There were some pieces on Brutus. Havelock the Dane. 

There was this wonderful piece that focused on everyday people on a pilgrimage. There were jokes about Northern dialects and what went on in Bath. Everyone went crazy for it. Tuscan imitated it, which was a sincere form of flattery.(4) More importantly, it was popular at home. Raised the prestige of Middle English. 

Meanwhile, Anglo-Norman and Norman suffered a personality break and became separate languages. 

Middle English wrote Anglo-Norman a sympathy card. "I'm just the villain of the piece. Anglo-Norman is the king." 

Anglo-Norman was fine with being king. She couldn't imagine why she'd wanted to use other words. French words. Possibly because she wanted to rule France. It was her destiny. If she could just get over this Plantagenet indigestion, and if she and her mere would stop fighting. 

It made Anglo-Norman feel very conflicted. 

Anglo-Norman shivered on her throne. She felt old. She said, "I'm Anglo-Norman! I rule England!" 

There was no sudden conflict. It was just that Middle English was everywhere. When Anglo-Norman went to look in her treasury, she kept finding words that had been borrowed. Stolen.(5) 

Anglo-Norman was reading a book in Middle English after watching a play in Middle English and a priest offered a homily in Middle English. She hung on for a time in Parliament, but by the time a Middle English speaking English king defeated French's Knights with English bows, Anglo-Norman had largely faded away. 

Middle English pushed aside the ghost and sat down on the throne. Opened a few theatres in London. Decided that France just wasn't that interesting. French could have it. 

It bought a few printing presses. Quietly pried Thorn out of her mother's sleeping consonants. 

It leaned back. "It's good to be a proper villain." 

+++ 

1 - Mother in French. 

2 - Mother in Irish Gaelic. http://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/celtic.htm 

3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ireland 

Beyond the pale, as in a fence made up of sticks in the ground. Thus impale. 

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beyond-the-pale.html 

4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_literature 

5 - The first English king to speak English as a primary language was Henry IV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_French_origin


	18. The Great Vowel Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Middle English was sick. Very sick. Hardly knew if the vowels were coming or going. Mostly going.
> 
> When it was over, things were very different.

Middle English was very sick. There was some question where it'd gotten it.

Middle English had been spending time with French, Spanish, and Iroquoian in the New World.

"It's not even remotely a New World," said Iroquoian.

Middle English clung to the loo and vomited vowels.

It could have been one of those dialects in India.

Middle English hung over the long drop.

When it finally recovered, all its vowels had shifted.

Its civil servants and budding dictionarians looked at the results of the Great Vowel shift spattered all over the place. (1)

The dictionarians muttered among themselves. They shook books in the air. They read words aloud. Nothing makes sense anymore.

One did say, "At least the e at the end of the word now makes the letter say its name. Hop versus hope. I hope."

"That's a good attitude. We should have hope." Middle English picked up a quill. "Don't worry everyone. I am great at fixing things."

University Latin laughed. "You really aren't." She lit up a medicinal and took a long drag.

Middle English had a toke or three. Decided that it was feeling more Modern. More sleek. "I think I'll change my name to English. Maybe Modern English. Post Modern English. I don't know. It's a work in progress. Yeah." It looked at the ceiling. "I used to be full of long vowels. Now, long vowels have merged. Split into short and long. Taken over each other's sounds. There isn't no other time that my vowels have been so messed up. Fuck."

University Latin said, "You know, all the double negatives you use, they don't make any sense. It's not logical."(2)

English said, "I've never not used multiple negatives."

"But see," said University Latin, "two negatives should contradict each other. I couldn't care less means you care. Logically speaking. I can't get no satisfaction means you're satisfied. Logically."

"Language should be logical, yeah," said English. "Do you think that will help solve some of my vowel problems?"

"Absolutely. Also, it's grounded in science. It's really modern."

"I like science," said English, who stole a dozen scientific words from Greek, who had shown up on a student visa a few years back after Turkish took over its empire and stripped its genders.

"Science is the best," agreed University Latin.

English took a few of her scientific words too while University Latin was busy lighting up another medicinal.

"Oh, and um…" said University Latin, "I've got this great rule you should use where if the verb in the sentence is a um… linker." She took another drag. "Linking verb, yeah. Yeah. Then the pronoun at the end of the sentence has to be the subject form. Yeah, I love that one." She took another drag. "Yeah, you would make more sense if saying, 'it is me' were wrong, while 'it is I' were correct." University Latin exhaled. "Linking implies equivalency."(3)

"That is fucked up," said English. "I like it. Now every native speaker is going to doubt their own instincts. They won't even know what to say. Just between you and I."

University Latin laughed. "You got that wrong. It's between you and me. Because between is between things. You see. Me is an indirect object pronoun. Or, you know, I think that should be rule. Sounds logical."(4)

"And saying between you and I felt so right too," said English. It took a drag from the medicinal. I blame Old Norse for fucking my grand-mother."

"Sounds right," said University Latin.

"I don't know. Latin didn't fuck my um… you know. Do I look like fucking Latin! Whom do you think I am?"

"Who," said the University Latin. "Whom is the object form. Cuz of your grandmother getting so fucked, you rely on word order. But you used it at the front of the sentence. You probably just lost track of where you were. If you'd asked, 'Whom should I give the words to?' it would have been correct, because the words are the object of the sentence."

"Deep," said English.

They tossed quills at the ceiling until Greek made them stop so it could get some sleep before the test the next day.

"But," English bleared, "at least the Great Vowel shift has been cleaned up."

"Not really," said the dictionarians, who were staring at the wreckage of phonetics. "You fixed something that wasn't a fucking problem. Were you high?"

English decided not to answer that question.

English decided in all of this to break up with Catholic Latin.

"What did I do?" said Catholic Latin.

"You won't let my king divorce his Spanish-Dutch wife and marry an English woman," said English. "And given he's the descendant of a Welsh peasant who knocked up the dowager English Queen, who was a French princess, I'm really confused right now. Also, University Latin is angry that I stole her science words. But it was for science."

Catholic Latin picked up her books. "You'll regret this."

"I don't know why. You're a dead language."

"I am not dead." Catholic Latin left and took Monastic Latin with her.

English took Monastic Latin's monasteries and Catholic Latin's things. They had nice things. It found some old Anglo-Saxon writing, but couldn't remember how to read it. It used the paper to patch holes in the roof and other critical things like that.

Eventually, it patched things up with University Latin. Mainly by giving her gifts.

University Latin made poets, who defended writing poetry in English. There was a whole theatre scene in London that inspired an upstart crow playwright, who made beautiful modern English that full of all sorts of composite new words. Arousing quite the green-eyed beast in French. Filling the generous groundlings with amazement.(5)

English liked that.

Poets sighed and wrote, "Thee, thy, thine, thou," to their most intimate loves.(6) When English translated the Bible into English, it really liked to using thee, thou and thine, because artistically that spoke of the relationship with the divine as a deeply personal one.

But after a while, pronouns like thee, thou and thine felt fancy. As if they were something that should be reserved for special occasions, because they were used in poetry and the Bible.

English started using the plural subjective and objectified you for everything. It put away thee, thou and thine.

Catholic Latin said, "If you'd kept me around, then this wouldn't have happened. You'd still have a plural form of you."

English shrugged. "I'm good with it. I don't need a plural you like you all do."

It decided the best thing for it was to make Cornish, Welsh and Irish Gaelic speak English. Fuck with Scots too. Spread the modern way.

Cymraeg said, "For the last time, I'm not named Welsh," and went to sing in the mountains.

Kernewek said, "You can call me Cornish," and faded away.

Irish and Scottish Gaelic took such a objection to this. They revolted.

English moved Scottish Gaelic speakers to Ireland. "Happy now. Now you're together."

They were not happy.

American English said, "You do realize that I was spared some of the vowel shift."

"Pft," said English. "You're still using old fashioned words like fall and sweets. That is not modern."

American English quietly fumed and plotted revolution.

After the revolution was done, it said, "Now I can fix the spelling."

English decided they needed to talk.

English, American English and Canadian English got together for a drink. American English had coffee. Canadian English had tea. English had a beer, because the sun had been over the yardarm since 11am.

Since English was eight hours ahead, English was very drunk. “What the fuck! What the fuck?”

“Sorry?” said Canadian English in a confused tone of voice.

American English drank its coffee. Leaned back on the couch, stared at a sidewalk and glared.

“My spelling! You need to stop changing it.” Sloshed English before taking another drink.

“Sorry?” said Canadian English in a confused tone of voice.

American English crossed nouns. “I was full of Us that didn’t do anything. And what are we French? Why were you spelling theater with an –re and not an er?”(7)

"But...but...my mum gave me those words. Mummy."

"I don't care if grandma gave you those spellings. They don't make any sense in English."

French, who was filling in a crossword entry for a ten letter word for a natural or artificial material used in concealment for tactical purposes muttered, “See if I fund your next revolution. This is how you repay me. By flooding your words into my vocabulary.”(8)

English said, "I cannot believe that you said that while I am sitting here."

“Why?” said French.

“You know very well why,” said English. It turned back to American English. "Why… why the verbs as nouns." English stabbed the table top with a verb. "Sure, Shakespeare did it, but he was a playwright. You're encouraging everyone to do it."

"I have to verb my nouns. I don't have enough verbs," said American English.

"Nyh!" said English. "Verb is a noun. No. There's... there's... plenty of verbs."

American English stood up with verbs akimbo. "I am a free spirit. If I need to torch things and exit your unfair taxation, that's what I'll do. If I need to put pressure when I interview incoming languages as they arrive later that I did to these shores, that's what I'll do."

Spanish said, "I was here before you."

"Right!" said Apache. "Tell me about how Spanish was here before English."

"Technically," said Navajo, "you invaded just a few..."

"You're not helping," said Apache.

"That's right," said American English. "I have to verb to protect potatoes grown in the purple majesty of Appalachia."

Quichuan sighed. "When I painstakingly bio-engineered thousands of varieties of potatoes and maize in the Andes mountains, I gave each of them a specific name because each of them was for a specific purpose. Please use those words. As long as you're using my work," said Quichuan. She held up a complicated string of knots. "I've clearly documented everything on these."

"And my amber waving fields of corn and Indian corn," continued American English.

"Oh, and the variety of maize you eat is the type I designed to feed to the livestock," said Quichuan.

"Shhh..." said Iroquoian.

"Oh," said Quichuan. "Uh... I'm shutting up now."

"To do all that I will verb my nouns and noun my verbs like fuck," said American English slamming back the rest of its coffee.

"I... was that fuck as a noun or fuck as a verb?" asked English, who was thinking maybe it needed to be British English to fit in with all the modern nationalism.

"That's the beauty of our shared linguistic heritage. The freedom not to care," said American English.

"My mother warned me that I'd have a child like you," said British English into its beer.

British English sobered up.

Matured.

It looked at Cockney. Cockney was using ain't for everything. "I ain't had been fine." But "She ain't and he ain't," was just wrong.(9)

"That's it," said British English. "I am not putting up with ain't from anyone anymore. Fuck was that a multiple negative?" It shook a noun. "My mother warned me that I'd have a child like you."

Cockney said, "You ain't pinchin' ain't from yur bricks and mortar."(10)

"I don’t know what any of that meant," said British English. It had still had a vowel ache. Decided that it needed to fix its pronunciations. Mainly because of Cockney English. It was dropping H all over the place. "That's it. We're pronouncing all the Hs."(11)

"But the H in Herb and Heir has always been silent," said French. "When using French words, you should use French pronunciations."

"I do not care," said British English. "I will only receive the received pronunciations from now on."

"Y'all're not the boss of me," said American English. (12)

+++

1 - Great Vowel Shift.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

2 - And goodbye double negatives. http://www.languagesoftheworld.info/syntax/dont-do-no-double-negatives.html

3 - Described beautifully in episode 54- Pros and Cons from History of the English language. I heard the episode and ranted for several minutes, because if they had taught this to me in school… well, if I'd have known I was confused because we added a rule from Latin into English that made me doubt that me was correct half the time. It might have been easier to remember the rules. Or not.

4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_you_and_I

5 - http://shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html

6 - Okay, so this continued the trend back in Middle English where You, which was the plural form of You, was used (influenced by French) as both the singular and plural forms when speaking to someone of a different social class or unknown. Forms like thee, thou, thine - which as you can tell from the th- came from Norse - started being used for people you know. Friends. Family. People started to think of them as fancy because they were in poetry and the Bible. They stopped using the intimate pronoun form.

7- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform

8 – The word she's looking for is Camouflage

Okay, still a borrow word in English from French.

 

9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't

10 - Rhyming cant, which I've kept to a minimum. http://londontopia.net/londonism/fun-london/language-top-100-cockney-rhyming-slang-words-and-phrases/

11- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dropping

12 – American English could also have said youse, yinz, you guys, etc. Seriously, a plural form of you is useful.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12916/yall-youse-8-english-ways-make-you-plural


	19. Manifest Destiny Gets the Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was gold in them thar hills for the taking.
> 
> "Excuse me," said Lakota.

In the west of the Americans, there was gold in the hills and words for the taking. 

“Excuse me,” said Lakota. 

Word flooded into American English as languages arrived in the New World. 

"Still not new," said Apache. 

Cherokee held up a written language. "Look what I did. You’ll respect me now right?" 

“Sure,” said American English signing off on a treaty. 

Dutch brought cookies and crullers. The Danish brought danishes. German's sauerkraut was less popular than hamburger. German felt angst over that, but still managed to get up and send the kids to kindergarten. Yiddish schmoozed with chutzpah. 

French crossed the prairie, over the butte and into the bayou. Spanish left the barrio to hold a rodeo in the canyon, next to the mesa, which was near an arroyo. 

American English looked at Indian corn, decided that calling all agricultural products corn was stupid. "But I'm keeping the word maize too," said American English. 

“I am utterly shocked,” said Navajo in a monotone. “Utterly shocked.” 

English, Spanish, Dutch, French, each of them, they each bore some responsibility, filled the holds of ships with Languages in West Africa to be slaves in the New World. 

Carib said, "Not a new world." 

"Where am I?" asked Yoruba, who had been chained between Igbo and Ashanti in the hold of such a ship and carried across the sea. Then Luo, Dinka, and Maasai shook their nouns. They were too close together. They did not yet understand each other. They all blinked up at the night sky, and did not know the names of the stars. 

Their dipthongs were taken and they were given monothongs and made to work together in the fields and houses. Forced to their master's nouns and verbs. In time, these languages changed. Blended. Bore new children. Of these, AAV English was one. It looked up at those stars and said, "I done been bought and sold. I ain't never known no home." 

American English said, "That's not even real English." 

AAV English pointedly put some yams in its gumbo. 

When American English took its gumbo and the pot it was in, AAV English said, "I dig it," and continued digging. It invented the music of the Blues, so it could be singing it in counter measure.(1) 

Followed those stars that it be studyin' when it could slip hip to hip thick cities, chock full a languages in tight quarters. Formed a Ragtime band. Creole lent some quadrilles. French Cajun ran off with the banjo. Cajun Spanish brought a backbeat. Toured a few cities. Broke up. Reformed. Made Jazz, but AAV English never forgot the Blues. 

+++ 

1 - Be in this context means habitually doing something. If I be singing the blues, I am always singing the blues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English


	20. Into the Alley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the alleyway, the English slunk. Seeking something...

In India, the various Indic languages looked at each other. They looked at British English. They looked at each other. 

They didn't want any of the others to be charge, which wasn't exactly the same thing as wanting English to be in charge. 

Still, British English had a trade empire to run. British English said, "I'm not coming up with a legal system for you. I'm here to make money." It translated Sanskrit and realized, "Wait, we have similar words. We couldn't possibly have borrowed words for each other. We're too far away, but there are hundreds of words that are clearly related." 

German said, "I'll do you one better. I've got intellectuals that are figuring out how all our languages shifted." Shook her head. "It was a Grim process from what I can tell." 

Once Indian English had done their graduation in England, passed out of college and was foreign returned, it felt confident enough to say, "My friend, it is not doing the needful to be such a stressed language. Syllable timing pleases the ear."(1) 

"Yes, I am stressed," said British English. "I have an empire on which the sun never sets." 

"Once I revert, I will intimate you on how we can do the needful. Our marriage is not issueless, but," 

"Let me repeat that I am very stressed," said British English. 

"Not because of me, said American English. "I go my own way." 

"You're all English," said British English. 

The Geordie dialect laughed. Brawled with Mancunian. Ended up singing with Scouse. Kentish was reading a few found poems written by Anglisc of Kent. 

Spanish hissed, "I have far more dialects that English ever will. Look at a map. Do you know how many words I've taken?" 

Mandarin huffed and crossed verbs without a single change of inflexion due to a complete lack of inflexions. 

British English muttered under its breath, "Just let me finish this..." It looked at the collected English languages. "As I was saying, you're all English." 

Afrikaans crossed her nouns. She pushed South African English forward, who was eating a bowl of pap. 

South African English said, "Maybe have a bit of a lekgotla. We'll make a plan to take some a' that stress off." 

"I'm not done speaking," said British English. 

"It has a stiff upper lip," said American English, who had more coffee and said to South African English, "I love your Australian Accent." 

Australian English said, "Right. Ignoring that. It's London to a brick that some words have gone walkabout. But we can get the mates discount on words." (2) 

British English said, "I shouldn't have gave birth to you with criminals." 

Australian English said, "Strewth, you're not still on about that. Creamed. Stoked. Those are fair dinkum words." 

"Like totally," said the Californian dialect. "I am like so totally stoked. I so have the bandwidth to like cream you with my cool new words. If you don't know what I mean, google me." 

"Uh," said American English. "I… that's Australia's fault." 

"In a pig's arse!" said Australian English. 

New Zealand English was enjoying a cuppa of tall white while on a hīkoi near Hobbiton.(3) "Yeah, no bro. We're one whanau." 

"What I am trying to say is that we are many tongues separated by a common language," said British English. 

"Here's tae us, wha's like us? Gey few, an' they're a' deid(4)," said Scots raising a pint. 

"Slainte," said Irish English, downing its own glass. 

"Cheers," said British English, who finished its pint and decided it wasn't worth pushing the point. 

The pack of them slunk down an alley. Perhaps looking for other languages to shake down for spare verbs and nouns. 

Perhaps not. 

Perhaps for a bit of rumpy pumpy in some dark corner, because languages are always on the lookout for a bit of word exchange. 

Languages changed on. 

+++ 

1 - https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/ten-surprising-expressions-indian-english https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/ten-surprising-expressions-indian-english 

2 - Yes, and now I'm just looking up phrases for dialectic differences as I wrap up. https://www.australianexplorer.com/slang/phrases.htm 

3 - Hike, http://www.maorilanguage.net/maori-words-phrases/maori-words-used-new-zealand-english/ 

4 - http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/scots.php

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And.... deep exhale. Just deep exhale. I hope you liked this. That your favorite verb or noun wasn't neglected and um... Cheers.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my writing, check out my profile for links to other works. 
> 
> Also, hey, if you've got an idea for a rule that should be a chapter, throw the idea on over.


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